Dear Group members,

First I would like to thank all of you for providing the wonderful
support in this forum for CISA aspirants. Really the level of discussion
helped me a lot in clearing my exam.Yes,I have cleared the CISA Exam
Jun'07.Really It was a wonderful experience I felt right from the
preparation till the time of getting my results.

So far I have been in a promiscuous mode in this group by just listening

the messages and discussions.I just changed to active mode after getting
the results and thought of writing this mail to give an insight about
the preparation of the Exam and the way to approach the question.Hope
this would be useful for the future CISA aspirant.

I have also cleared CISM exam on Jun'06 but I find CISA to be very tough
in terms of preparation as well as answering the question.Being working
in an IS Audit platform ,I definitely felt it was very tougher than
CISM.This is my personal experience.

Definitely we should appreciate ISACA for having such a wonderful

certification and the Content Areas.

Here comes the preparation which I have went through, this is not a
thumb rule hence you can adopt your own strategy of preparation.

1. Mentally prepare yourself for the Exam and keep in back of your
mind that you’re going to take an internationally recognized certification
which is going to enhance your career reputation and knowledge.
2. Book the Exam in advance to get avail of ISACA offers for early
registration.
3. Stick to the Exam date, try not to reschedule the exam unless
there is an emergency cause, Focus on your date..
4. Form a study group accordingly, so that you can pace your
preparation.
5. Buy CISA Review Manual and the CISA Q& A CD and the Supplement
manual for Q & A.
6. Try to go through 2006 and 2007 CISA Q & A(You will get more than
1700 questions for review)
7. Plan a study chart, by allocating the chapters accordingly in an
Excel-sheet for day wise preparation. Fix up the target like 20 pages
everyday or weekly a chapter based on your working environment and other
factors like time availability. My personal suggestion is to spend
at least 1 hr per day and weekends up to 4-5 hrs, so that you can relax in
revising the chapters and Q & A at later stage.
8. Take the sample Questions given in the Review manual at the end of
chapter once you finish up the chapters also take the Q & A in the CD
immediately for that chapter.
9. Don't worry about your wrong answers and the score, my best advice
and suggestion is to review the Explanation given for the answers
irrespective of you chose right or wrong.Definietely this helps you to
strengthen the concepts and the ISACA approach on the CISA exam.
10. Follow the above said procedure till you finish the CISA Review
Manual.
11. Download the ISACA CISA Glossary from the site and read the terms
given each by each. Understand the terms no need to memorize. I found
most of the Glossary terms have relation with the Questions.
12. Now take a random selection of Questions from all the chapters and
answer it. Take 50 once and increase the count subsequently. Because you
will get tired of seeing more questions, so adopt by taking few questions
then increase the count.
13. You can do the same with the CISA Q & A supplement book given by
ISACA which have 100 questions as a sample test.
14. At this stage you will get an idea of the Questions and the
context it was asked.
15. Now start making your plan for your 1st revision and read the CRM
again and follow the same steps as mentioned above. At this point of time
you have to carefully read the question and eliminate the
distracters. I’m sure definitely you will get a reasonable score than the
previous time.
16. Once you completely revised the CRM and the Q& A of all the
chapters, take a sample test of 200 Questions which is found in the CISA
Supplement Q & A. Just simulate yourself as real CISA exam and
goahead..Try to keep up the timing..
17. Timing Allocation and target :ex:( Duration :9.00a.m-1.00pm )

50 Questions-10.00am

100 Questions-11.00am

150 Questions-12.00pm

200 Questions-1.00pm

18.Now validate your answers against the key given in the Q & A. check
your weak areas and identify how did you went wrong?

19.Retake the exam again and validate the results.You can select your
test Questions alternatively from Q & A supplement book and from the
ISACA 2007 Q& A CD .

20. I personally believe 2007 CD have lot of features like Personal

Professor, category listing, restrictions etc.Please make use of
it. There are also many new questions found comparing to the 2006 CD.

Finally on the exam day.......

Be relaxed ..Try to close your books on the previous day itself...Just

go through Glossary if time permits...Be focused and keep back of your
mind that you are going to earn a worldwide recognition.

Adopt the time strategy as mentioned above...stick to time and try to

answer at one shot...postponed the question only if you have more doubt
on answering. Definitely you can eliminate the distracters, but the
tough guy is the other two. Think from an Auditor perspective and
answer..Understand the context of the question.

Very importantly shade your answers in the correct circle for the
relevant question. You may make a mistake here..Be careful...Don't get
overexcited of seeing a question which you have found already in the CD
or Q & A supplement. The context of question will be a different even the
choices too. So please read the question full and answer it..

Finally ,make use of this group and post your doubts and suggestions and
the difficulties you are facing while preparation,I'll try my best to
help you and I'm sure there are many senior members in this group who
are doing excellent job in helping the future CISA aspirants..

Hope my insights on CISA preparation would help you in achieving the

target..

Best of Luck to everyone...

rgds

Vijai.K , CISM,BS7799LI,CEH,CCSP(Ios),CCNP,CCNA