CISSP Official Study Guide
Reddit take
AI summary of the Reddit excerpts below — not a quote
The CISSP Official Study Guide (OSG), often referred to as the Sybex book, is widely regarded as the essential 'gold standard' for exam preparation due to its comprehensive coverage of the material. While it is praised for its depth and accuracy as a primary foundation, it is equally notorious for being exceptionally dry, dense, and difficult to read cover-to-cover. Most candidates recommend using it as a reference to deep-dive into weak domains rather than as a sole narrative source.
Pros
- Comprehensive coverage of all exam domains and concepts.
- Invaluable as a baseline or primary foundation for the certification.
- Excellent for deep-diving into specific technical or business process topics.
- Useful practice questions and labs for reinforcing vocabulary and concepts.
Cons
- Notoriously dry and boring, making it difficult to maintain engagement.
- Extremely dense and long, with some users comparing it to reading a dictionary.
- The structure can be frustrating or overwhelming for first-time readers.
- Mixed reviews on practice exams; some find them useful, while others feel they don't reflect the actual exam style.
Caveats
- Commonly recommended to be used as a reference tool rather than a cover-to-cover read.
- Often requires pairing with more engaging supplemental materials (e.g., videos or concise guides) to avoid burnout.
- Some technical sections may feel slightly dated compared to modern cloud-first environments.
Best for
- Candidates seeking the most thorough and 'official' source material.
- Deep-diving into specific domains where practice test scores are low.
- Building a solid theoretical foundation from scratch.
Avoid if
- You struggle to stay focused on dense, academic textbooks.
- You have a very limited study window and need a high-level summary.
- You prefer visual or interactive learning over heavy reading.
This summary uses balanced time weighting with about a 122-month half-life. The evidence is recent and robust, with a median source age of approximately 120 days, reflecting current sentiment on the 9th and 10th editions of the guide.
Sentiment
214 positive (53%) · 111 mixed (28%) · 77 negative (19%)
Trust + time weighted score: +34% · raw score 34%
What redditors said (10 of 402)
All I used was the official study guide with a good bit of note taking, the learnzapp, the CISSP study guide podcast on Spotify, and 2-3 listens of Pete Zerger’s main overview video.
OSG 8/10: Contentwise it is really good. The structure is extremely terrible. If you use it as your first or primary source, you will end up giving up after a month probably. ... But when used together with the DestCert it is a fantastic complementary source.
ditch the OSG its like reading a dictionary
Use the official study guide and the practice tests(you can test by domain and by the entire test), and consider QE too.
OSG (10/10) - Very well written and easy to read. Sometimes repetitive because topics naturally overlap, but overall an excellent primary resource. The labs, practice problems, and exams are useful for reinforcing concepts and vocabulary.
1) Don't use the Sybex book.
I’ve also been avoiding the OSG since I really don’t enjoy books for learning and I heard it’s a tough read.
I believe the OSG still comes with electronic practice exams. When I took the exam in 2023, I used those and they were fine. I passed at 100 first attempt.
Official Study Guide 9th ed — I only used the end-of-chapter practice questions. Never read the chapters themselves and didn't miss them.
Also glad to hear someone else found the OSG dry enough to abandon after 200 pages.
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Related
- Official Study Guide (OSG) 10th Edition · variant · 11 mentions
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