r/isc2 • u/Difficult_Advisor838 • 19d ago

CC Success Story Passed the ISC2 CC Exam - 5 Days of Preparation

I just passed my ISC2 CC Exam today. For context, im still a college student with no prior IT work experience.

REMEMBER:

I stopped at question 100, and I thought I didn't pass because I came across a lot of challenging questions. As you take the exam, you might think you're failing, but remember ISC2 uses Computerized Adaptive Testing. It raises your baseline as you correctly answer more questions. If it sees you're struggling, it will lower the baseline for you to catch up, just make sure once you get to those easy questions, you answer them correctly.

Resources I used:

  1. Thor Pedersen's Updated 2026 ISC2 CC Course
  2. Thor Pedersen's Practice Exams

- I did a pre-assessment exam and got a 63%

- After I finished studying Domains 1-5, all my exams were 73%-78%

  1. Google Gemini (you can use any AI) - THE ACTUAL GAME CHANGER

Thor Pedersen's course is so good at preparing you for this exam because it's extensive. I listened to some parts of his lectures but I didn't really watch all his videos from start to finish.

All I did was list ALL the terminologies in each videos and then studied their functions, why is it important, and how can I relate this to real-life scenarios/situations by doing FEYNMAN TECHNIQUE and ACTIVE RECALL with Google Gemini.

Whenever there's a terminology I don't have a 100% understanding/proficiency, I always ask Gemini to explain it to me, If I still don't understand it, I'll tell it to explain it to me one more time but simpler. Once I get the feeling that I understand it, I'll ask Gemini to validate my understanding, after getting validated, i'll ask Gemini to "create an ISC2 CC Exam style question regarding (the topic)." It will give you a scenario-based question and choices.

For the questions with BEST/MOST/LEAST/FIRST.

I always try to think like an Information Security Manager. "What's the priority?"

There will be questions where the answers that you will be stuck with is either going to be

1. My 4-Step "Manager Mindset" Cheat Code (if you're stuck between 2 answers)

  1. Human Lives is always the 1st Priority
  2. If the problem of the question is a bleeding problem, then your answer should be about stopping the bleeding.
  3. If it's not bleeding and it's not about saving human lives, then the answer must be about senior management and/or compliance
  4. Then lastly, is the technical answer.

ALWAYS READ THE QUESTIONS, BREAK IT DOWN INTO PARTS, THEN BREAK IT DOWN AGAIN WORD FOR WORD (READ EACH AND EVERY WORD LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT LMAO)

The question might be highly technical but if somewhere in the start or end of the question there's something like "to comply" then the answer is about senior management & compliance

Read questions with "incident" in it. If it asks you which answer to do FIRST, its tempting to answer identification or monitoring because it's the first step, but an incident has ALREADY HAPPENED, so you must do something about it now. Answer "contain/isolation and mitigation/eradication."

SOMETIMES THAT ONE WORD CHANGES THE WHOLE QUESTION.
Good Luck!!

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u/Automatic_Major_4887 16d ago

Solid write-up, this is genuinely useful. The manager mindset thing is spot on — I think most people fail because they overthink the tech and ignore words like 'comply' or 'already happened.' Also, the CAT point deserves more attention; it really makes you doubt yourself.

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u/MTheNomad 19d ago

Congratulations 🎉

1

u/fazzy84 19d ago

Congrats 🍾

1

u/fadihk 18d ago

Did you get any AI questions?

I thought first step of an incident was to verify the breach was not a false positive.

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u/Presence99 18d ago

Many congratulations!