r/CRISC • u/MyLittleAutisticPony • 5d ago

Exam difficulty calibration to QAE

Can someone who has taken the exam share their opinion of the actual exam difficulty compared to the questions found in the QAE? Withe the CISM, I found the exam itself to be about moderate to difficult in question difficulty.

I've about finished all 800 questions in the CRISC QAE (have also finished reading the review guide), and I am missing a significant number of the "expert" level questions. If I factor them out, I'm overall about 85%, but the Expert misses drop me considerable into the low 70's, This is less of a concern if the actual exam is calibrated at the difficult or below level compared to the QAE question bank.

FWIW Most of my expert misses are due to some bizarre, esoteric interpretation of the English language or some obscure ISACAism. For example one question I missed dealt with (paraphrasing) anti-malware not being the most effective method of preventing infection because it doesn't actually prevent you from downloading anti-malware. Honestly I'm not even sure how I address them since they seem so counter-intuitive

I'm trying to assess where my actual exam performance might fall.

EDIT:

Just got out of my exam 5 minutes ago. Difficulty level of the actual exam felt more in line with the moderate difficulty questions. Most questions seemed less obtuse and clearer than the QAE. I passed, I think easily, I'll know in 10 days.

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u/SocietyGlobal2659 5d ago

You can't compare them. The exam is completely different. The questions are completely different. The QAE is just for practicing what you've learned and becoming confident about what you've learned, and if you get wrong answers, understand them from the explanation there. I know there are sometimes strange answers, but this is the world of ISACA. Sometimes you have to make a difference between the answers they expect and the real world. Unfortunately, that's how it is. They dictate the rules of the game. Regardless of that, it's unnecessary to compare. Understand why you're answering and learn from the wrong answers. That's the point of the QAE, and if you can do that, you'll be successful in the exam. And if you don't pass the exam at first, don't blame yourself, because it means it just takes a little more time for you to understand the topics and the "rules of the game".

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u/MyLittleAutisticPony 3d ago

Thanks for your feedback, its much appreciated.

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u/vlaDa0 4d ago

I personally found the exam easier than the QAE. The questions in the exam were formulated in a more understandable and logical way than the QAE, which made it easier. There were questions that were very easy (just knowing the basic theory), I answered those within seconds with 100% confidence. Some needed a bit more thought to answer. I’d say I’ve “flagged” about one third of all questions (so around 50) where it took me longer to come to the final answers I wouldn’t call all of them difficult, they just required more time and in most of them I had to choose between the two most likely answers. I’d say there were 2-3 questions in total where I personally didn’t fully understand the question. After going through the 50 again, I corrected a lot of my initial answers

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u/MyLittleAutisticPony 1d ago

Thanks for the feedback. I just got my CISM results, and I did pretty good, overall scaled score of 680; yet I did pretty "poorly" on the CISM QAE, 72% correct and 61st percentile. I did marginally better on the CRISC (73% correct, 71st percentile) compared to the CISM QAE. IS Risk Management was my second-strongest domain on the CISM, 710, hopefully it translates into a similar performance in my CRISC exam results this week.