Finished? Maybe

Those of you who actually know me know that I’ve been cramming like crazy for the CISSP exam in the last couple of weeks.  Twelve years in the industry … 2 years of study … 20 days of virtual bootcamp, practice exams and cramming … and it all came down to this:  250 “all of the answers might be wrong but choose the best one anyway” questions in 6 hours.

I took my CISSP exam yesterday.

With all of the intensive studying I’ve done in the last two weeks, I decided to keep Friday pretty mundane.  Afterall, there really isn’t much new material that I could learn well enough in 24 hours to remember it for the exam, right?

I took one last practice exam on Friday morning and then headed out for some errands.  I picked up some pool chemicals, a magazine, pencils, erasers, and some snacks to take with me.  I had decided that since the exam was being given at a hotel that I would stay there rather than get up at 5:30am in order to drive there.  In retrospect, I’m glad that I did.

I got to the hotel around 8:30pm, checked in and then unpacked.  I headed down to the bar (the restaurant was booked with a private party) for dinner:  an appetizer platter and a Long Island Iced Tea.  I went over some last minute study materials as I ate, and then headed upstairs for bed.  The very noisy air conditioner woke me up several times, so, unfortunately I was already awake when my alarm went off.

Due to an NDA and the Code of Ethics that ISC2 requires that you sign before taking the exam, I can’t really tell you much about it.  I can tell you that people are very rude.  You would think that they would figure out that slamming the door while headed in and out of the testing room for breaks would kill your concentration — but they didn’t.  And then there was the guy who whispered to himself and constantly rattled his exam booklet while reading it like a newspaper.  Constant tapping on tables and foot tapping could be heard everywhere.  It was difficult for me to keep my mind on the question at hand due to all of the noise in the room.  Bad time to discover that I had forgotten to bring my earplugs.

But I got through it.  John says he’s proud of me no matter how my score comes out because he knows how hard I worked to prepare.  I really would like to pass because I don’t want to go through that again, and besides, $550 is a lot of cash. It’s hard to say how I did, because at times I felt that I knew the answers and there were others when I wondered just why I was sitting there.  I hear that everyone feels that way after taking the CISSP exam.

I get my test score in two weeks.  Keep your fingers crossed!

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