Certified in Cybersecurity - ISC2

It's official, I have passed my exam for Certified in Cybersecurity. I wanted to share my strategy taking the exam. I will be applying a similar strategy to CompTIA Security+ exam. More after the jump. 

The strategy was to eliminate wrong answers first. This was helpful on some questions I was not familiar with. Typically, I could eliminate my choices down to 2 options. Some answers were obviously wrong, as some choices conflicted with the question itself. If further deduction was needed, I would look for context clues/words that would give me a better idea of the best answer. 

For me, repetition is key. I did a lot of practice exams. One thing I noticed was a lot of low-quality content out there that was unhelpful. CertPreps.com had test exams that I found helpful. Each attempt, I would go over what I got wrong. The post-exam debrief would show me exactly WHY I was wrong - and why the correct answer was right. This helped avoid a trap in just regurgitating facts and answers. 

The whole point is to gain skills, not just pass a test. I am thankful it took one attempt to get Certified in Cybersecurity. The exam itself was more difficult than I was expecting. The testing facility was great, but any formal test like this is intimidating. Historically, I am not a great student, so there is an additional intimidation factor. Managing emotions was key but not something I am unfamiliar with. 

When I finished, I was not sure if I had passed the exam or not. I prepared myself for either outcome. It was exciting to see that my strategy had a favorable outcome. 2026 is going to be a lot of building cybersecurity skills. This is a big step, one of many. I look forward to more.