Parn, hello!
As the author of the Official SSCP Study Guide (2nd and 3d edition), and its companion CBK, let me offer some thoughts.
0. Up front, let me say that I do not have any visibility into the exam-creation process, nor what its questions are going to look like. That said, (ISC)2 asked me to write a study guide that helped people become competent SSCPs... and not just "pass the test."
1. Currency. Yes, we do have a new SSCP exam outline, which when compared to previous outlines (such as what you can find in the 3d Edn Study Guide) shows a shift in emphasis in some areas. If you compare that to the 3d Edn you may notice a few ares on the exam outline that aren't covered in the study guide. Track down current industry-leading publications for insight on any of those issues you don't have good, working knowledge of.
2. The same goes for any areas in the exam outline, or the Study Guide, which you look through and realize that you need to know more.
3. Be very, very thoughtful and careful when looking at industry white papers, such as the case studies or notes that you can find on many systems vendors' home pages. Some are great! Many, however, may present such a biased view (towards their own products or services) that you may not get a balanced understanding of the concepts they are trying to present.
4. Learning about the concepts, and how they work (and what they don't do!) gets you thinking broadly and deeply. We might call this the "education" side of learning how to become an SSCP. The questions in the study guide are written to get you thinking about these issues. The combination of the Study Guide and the Common Book of Knowledge (CBK) can help you with this.
5. Practice tests, sample questions, flashcards, and lots of practice problems help you remember details, and build stronger connections between details, ideas, and situations. There are some excellent practice test guides out there, such as those by Mike Chapple.
6. Pace yourself; take your time. The best way to remember what we learn is to do our learning in short activities, maybe an hour or less; then, take a break and do (and think about) something else. Then come back and do more learning activities. The body's neurochemical networks take that relax-and-revisit cycle as a signal to strengthen connections.
Finally... ask questions! Ask them here in this blog, ask people you work with, ask me, ask other working professionals. And I'd even say "ask the bots!" I had a pleasant conversation the other day with one of the "industrial-strength" LLMs (which I shouldn't endorse here), as I wanted to be more confident in my ideas about how multiple open browser tabs, all with multiple update activities going on (as they download .html and other files from their web servers).... how does what part of my system know which arriving packet belongs to which HTTP or HTTPS connection, and which process or app or what have you to give it to? The bot and I talked about that, and as I asked deeper questions (and asked for references to sources), I learned a lot! (And the bot is awake 24/7... I certainly am not!)
I hope this helps. Happy to keep chatting with you, or anyone else who wants to become an SSCP!
Cheers,
Michael S. Wills, SSCP, CISSP, CAMS
Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist,
Certified Mentor Coach,
Academic Innovation Research (AIR) Associate Fellow,
Assistant Professor,
Applied Information Technologies
College of Business
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide Faculty
