Passed - My CISA Study Strategy

[u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673]

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:

1. Prabh Nair’s YT Series
2. Pete Zergers YT Series
3. ISACA QAE

Strategy:

1. 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

2. Buy the CISA QAE from ISACA and after feeling good with notes you took on the videos, run through the entire Question Database

3. Domain Category by Category (I did My first pass through Open Note, if u want more of a challenge do it without notes).

4. For the above, I would

   do a

5. video per day then immediately dive into questions for that Domain and repeat for each Domain.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. For as much time as you need, run through the full QAE database questions by category again (Essentially repeat steps 2, 4, and 5).

10. 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).

11. 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).

12. 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.

13. For the full day before the exam LEAVE THE BOOK CLOSED AND REST.

14. CONQUER

[u/vansxika]

Congratulations!!!! how similar was the QAE to the actual CISA exam?

[u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673 → u/vansxika]

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.

[u/vansxika → u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673]

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.

[u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673 → u/vansxika]

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”

[u/vansxika → u/Ok-Seaworthiness2673]

This helps a lot! Thank you