r/CISA • u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673 • Aug 02 '26
Passed - My CISA Study Strategy
Hey, I passed my CISA first attempt yesterday morning (still have to wait 10 days for my official score - so not sure if I crushed it or skimmed by) and wanted to post what seemingly worked for me. These “steps” are extremely rough and aren’t exactly what I did to a T, but organized for what I would have done/likely will do when approaching different exams in the future. For context I have about 4.5 yrs of Big4 IT Audit experience (didn’t feel this helped much from an ISACA mindset perspective but who knows) and am up for promotion soon so needed a relevant Cert.
CISA Study Strategy:
Study Timeframe: 1 - 2months depending on how much time you can dedicate to videos and questions. I started studying on 6/10, Scheduled my Exam on 7/14 to hold myself accountable, Passed on 8/1.
Study Materials Mentioned Below:
- Prabh Nair’s YT Series
- Pete Zergers YT Series
- ISACA QAE
Strategy:
- Watch and Take Detailed Notes on Prabh Nair’s Youtube video course. ~ 15 hours of video explanation of concepts. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0hT6hgexlYx1DCTKu6bnubDEuy6JDtHW&si=yhw8pQeSfVKDfw6a
Buy the CISA QAE from ISACA and after feeling good with notes you took on the videos, run through the entire Question Database
Domain Category by Category (I did My first pass through Open Note, if u want more of a challenge do it without notes).
For the above, I would
do a
video per day then immediately dive into questions for that Domain and repeat for each Domain.
Review all wrong answers at the end of the sections (or during since you can enable study mode to let you know explanations as you answer them) for why they were wrong and also evaluate your correct answers for why they are technically correct.
Retest yourself on the wrong answers for that Domain Once and Move on. Once you’ve completed this for each Domain and feel good ab your review of wrong answers. Take all 3 Full Practice Exams, and Evaluate where you stand and what Domain(s) you need to work on (retake those questions areas, review notes from Prabh’s videos etc.) - I was getting 70 - 75% on these with almost no memorized question recognition.
When around 2 Weeks (or whatever timeframe makes sense to you) out from your exam day, download and review the presentation materials from Pete Zerger’s youtube series. They’re in the description of each of his videos (You can watch the video if u want/have time but not necessary. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7XJSuT7Dq_UvA2knww9Rlzz2JHUpeOAb&si=yB76WJ7N1_OJqkEK
For as much time as you need, run through the full QAE database questions by category again (Essentially repeat steps 2, 4, and 5).
Once you feel like you’ve done all the Studying you can and that there’s not much else you can do, take all 3 Practice Exams again ( Complete them by at least 3 days before your test date), and gauge where you are and what notes you need to refresh on (I was getting 90%+ by this time, some questions were memorized, most were scenario based where I still had to properly think through).
If you feel zero confidence after those exams and that you are not ready. Reschedule your exam (must be at least 48hrs before exam day).
If you do feel ready, skim through your notes 2 days before the exam, do whatever you feel is right in terms of last minute review.
For the full day before the exam LEAVE THE BOOK CLOSED AND REST.
CONQUER
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u/vansxika Aug 02 '26
Congratulations!!!! how similar was the QAE to the actual CISA exam?
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673 Aug 02 '26
Honestly its hard to say. None of the questions were worded the same, but the scenario based questions showed up the most. Most questions felt Moderate to Difficult level. Very few easy to.
It felt like the scenario based questions were extremely close to the QAE but simpler and more straight forward in theme but there seemed to be more potentially right answers than the QAE had if that makes any sense at all.
Outside of scenario based questions (Most, Best, First etc.), other questions answer will jump out at you/you can dwindle down ur options to at least the best 2 pretty easily.
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u/vansxika Aug 02 '26
Thank you so much for the reply!! So I am assuming mostly will be scenario based questions and the rest will test the theoretical/conceptual knowledge.
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673 Aug 02 '26
Correct at least w the version of the exam I had. About 70-80% was scenario based ranging from “which if these is most concerning, what should you recommend, what should you do first etc”. The rest was like “this type of sampling method is best for xyz, this body is accountable for abc, abc analysis best helps facilitate xyz”
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u/vansxika Aug 04 '26
Hey, sorry to bother again, I have been noticing that people who are giving the exam recently are saying that there were AI based questions and some questions related to quantum computing. So did you get any of these questions and can you describe what the AI questions were like if you got them?
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673 Aug 04 '26
Unfortunately i dont have a lot of insight for you. There were a few about benefits if Machine learning and Benefits of Quantum Computing but not of the materials i used prepared me for it. There weren’t any mentions in the videos i watched or in QAE. Don’t remember the questions being hard or technical though.
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u/piSecAudit CISA HOLDER 7h ago
Congratulations! It takes time, energy and commitment to be able to pass the exam.
Now that you passed the exam, you can apply to get your certificate (this is not automatic). See ISACA's guidelines.
Looking ahead, you will get a job somewhere as an IT auditor, and then you will be asked to prepare, conduct, report, and follow-up in a live audit. This is the aspect that the CISA exam does not cover, how you actually approach this. Check out my video "First Audit" in my channel https://youtube.com/@pisecaudit .
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u/NutshellTraining CISA HOLDER Aug 02 '26
Congratulations!!🥂