I passed my CISSP exam today. I remembered how I struggled during the exam. It’s Computerized Adaptive Testing so that means that as you answer questions correctly, you will get tougher questions. Then when you answer them wrongly, you will get easier questions. That also means that you cannot go back to the previous question to change your answer. So it’s like a psychological gameplay. As you struggled more in the questions, it means you are on the right track to passing. But the moment you get a straightforward question, it means you answered the previous question wrongly. 🙁 So yes, it’s extremely stressful and I’m close to breaking down from the stress during the exam.

You are given 3 hrs to complete a minimum of 100 questions. After the 100th question, all the subsequent questions will be used for grading you. Before you hit 100 questions, you might get some “testing/sampling” questions which doesn’t affect your grade but is there to test the standard of the paper. So you can imagine every time I hit “Next” button and I see a new question. That means I am not near to passing and have to keep doing the questions until the maximum of 150 questions before I know if I pass or fail the exam. So guess what. I got the full set of 150 questions. That’s like 50 times of anxiety every time I clicked “Next” button. I took toilet and water break at the 110th question mark just to reset my emotions a bit.

I have to admit that this exam is much more stressful than my GCFA exam. This exam is supposed to be the last exam that I will take for this year but plans may be changed. I will see what my team is planning and may join them in another exam prep journey. Well, life of a cybersecurity professional is all about continuous learning and certification.

Now I have passed the exam and submitted the endorsement application. I’m just waiting for the certification to arrive and I heard it will take about 2 months. Oh my, what a long wait. I guess I will wait before I post on LinkedIn. I might change my mind on that though.

I wanted to reward myself after the exam and I went window shopping at Orchard. Well, my exam was at Orchard area anyway. I got myself a huge cup of wildflower honey oolong tea latte with osmanthus jelly but didn’t get any gifts for myself. Well, I’m controlling well and spending wisely for sure haha. Actually, it’s more like I overspend last month and didn’t dare to spend too much this month, especially with more future spending that is expecting from September onwards. 😐 I definitely need to hustle more at work to get my promotion in the next cycle.