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What is the best way to study for the CISSP certification?

I often get the question from students, “What is the best way to study for the CISSP certification?”.

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It is a hard question to answer, because we all learn differently. I normally explain what I do for new certifications, and it seems to work well for most of my students for their CISSP.

  • Watch the videos (1-3 sources).
  • Read the book (I recommend the official Sybex and/or AIO).
  • Re-watch the videos.
  • Start doing practice questions, after each test re-watch videos and reread book for the questions you got wrong.
  • At this point it is really practice tests > weak areas > practice test > weak areas and on and on.
  • For the last 1-2 weeks, I suggest 11th hour, re-watch videos, do practice tests, scoring 80%+ on all domains is recommended.

You can NOT memorize your way to the CISSP certification, you need the knowledge, you need good English skills, and you need to reason your way through the questions.

Spend a few minutes on each question initially, deconstruct the question: “What are they ACTUALLY asking here”, after you are clear on what they are asking, look at the answer options, also deconstruct those if it is needed.

Often you will have 2 answers that are possibly right, you need to logic your way through why one of them is MORE right.

Thor Pedersen

IT, information security, and project management trainer Best selling CISSP. CISM, and PMP instructor on Udemy. CISSP, CISM, C|EH, CDPSE, PMP, 2x CCNP, CompTIA Security+, SCP, 3x CCNA, et. Al.