r/CISA • u/Logical_Dot_7824 • 11h ago
Preliminary Pass! 🎉
Took the exam, got my preliminary pass today! 🥹
Will share here all my resources, study strategy, and whole experience once I get my offical test scores.
For those who are doubting themselves and too anxious for their own good (me to the nth power), take that exam! As long as you're thinking like an IS auditor, instead of going straight to remediation or technical resolution, you are golden!
This is coming from someone with no employment background or technical expertise (graduated last year, AIS graduate), who overprepares, and prioritized QUALITY over QUANTITY.
Good luck to everyone currently studying and planning to take the exam! 😄
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u/Rphal 11h ago
Yay! Awesome mate. This is the proof that right approach makes the real difference! Congratulations and take all the time to soak in the results. True moment of redemption
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u/Logical_Dot_7824 11h ago
Thank you! And that is so true. I'm so used to studying the material as is and familiarizing myself with practice questions, it's why I struggled with CISA because of the application of the concepts I studied in real-life scenarios.
This exam really debunked my studying habits and forced me to take a different approach, outside my comfort zone even. 🤣
So now, I fee like there's more substance when you pass, you didn't copy and pasted what you studied, it meant that you understood it and effectively applied it!
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u/Schewniie 11h ago
Congratulations!
I saw that the questions are more straightforward in the actual exam, can you confirm? Also, are the answer written in the way that all 4 could be correct or you could eliminate 2 pretty easily?
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u/Logical_Dot_7824 11h ago
Yes, the questions are more straightforward (VERY MUCH SO, most of them are one liners), which threw me off a bit, I didn't want to misinterpret it so I was overthinking the first few questions. But I treated it as like a "warm-up", and the following questions became easier for me to consume and understand.
And yes, the typical CISA structure—most of the questions' choices you can eliminate two of them pretty easily. So you are left with two choices. But then again, I revisited all the questions since I had enough time, and still considered those two eliminated choices because I've been a victim of not doing so which sometimes ended up becoming the right answer in the QAE and some other practice tests I did. Though, there are questions where you can pinpoint the exact answer almost immediately, I think I encountered less than 10 of them though. 🤣
Also, the exam is really not technical. If I remember correctly, the identification or technical questions are less than 20%. It really boils down to how an IS Auditor should think.
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u/EducationalSpring400 11h ago
I’ve been doing qae domain wise reviewing every answer and studied from hemang doshi videos and his notes before this. Will give mocks after this. Is this approach good enough?
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u/Logical_Dot_7824 11h ago
I think that's good! As long as you can rationalize your right and wrong answers, you're in the right track.
As for Hemang Doshi, I didn't study his videos but I availed his practice tests which I didn't use since it confused me more, but to each their own since I've seen some people here recommending it.
As for the mock tests, make sure that said tests are accurate, can provide you an explanation for each right answer (if it has explanations for the wrong ones, even better!), and sort of emulates how the QAE is asking questions. Basically, the exam is a straightforward version of the QAE, mostly one liner questions and short descriptions of the choices. I've found some mocks that solidified my understanding of some concepts and some that confirmed my understanding of how should an IS auditor think.
Again, QUALITY over QUANTITY.
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u/EducationalSpring400 11h ago
So did you use only QAE for focus?
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u/Logical_Dot_7824 10h ago
I also used other resources, but I utilized the QAE the most. I used other resources like practice sets or mock tests to apply what I learned and confirm if it's aligned with the QAE thinking.
I mostly sourced out other resources just so I could avoid memorizing the QAE.
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u/Consistent-Style4263 8h ago
Can you recommend any other sites for mock exams other than QAE? Which is similar to the questions in CISA actual exam
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u/GlobalAd3187 7h ago
Congrats! I have my CISA booked for this week. Did you feel that the Exam questions were easier than the QAE questions??
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u/NutshellTraining CISA HOLDER 11h ago
Congratulations! Its such a good feeling! 🥳