Failure and retake · Understand
Why do people fail the CISSP?
In the failure accounts analysed, the dominant cause is a preparation calibrated for a technical exam when the test measures decisions. The symmetrical mistake also exists: relying on the “think like a manager” advice alone, without the knowledge, causes just as many failures. Then come single or outdated materials, time management, and a few attempts lost for purely administrative reasons.
People fail the CISSP first of all because they prepared for the wrong exam: a revision calibrated for a technical test, when the test measures decisions. That is the number one cause emerging from fifty public candidate accounts devoted to failure and retaking, published between July 2023 and June 2026 — causes self-diagnosed by candidates who failed, and often passed later. That is the good news of this theme: most of these failure accounts end in a pass.
Is failing the CISSP really rare?
No. Of the fifty accounts selected, thirty-four report at least one failure experienced by the author: eleven posts written in the immediate aftermath, and twenty-three accounts of a pass obtained after one or more failures. The sixteen first-attempt passes do not describe a very different experience: almost all of them feature a candidate convinced they were failing during the exam.
This ratio is not a failure rate — people post because they have something to tell — but it is enough to establish that failing is commonplace, and that it can be recovered from. As for the claim you often come across that “only 20% of candidates pass on the first attempt”, it comes from a comment with no source, and ISC2 does not publish this kind of statistic: it cannot be verified.
| # | Self-diagnosed cause | Presence in the accounts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Overly technical preparation, answering at the wrong level | ~12 accounts out of 34 |
| 2 | Mindset only, without the knowledge | 3 explicit accounts |
| 3 | Single, free or outdated materials | ~8 accounts |
| 4 | Time management and reading too fast | ~6 accounts |
| 5 | Overconfidence linked to experience | 3 accounts |
| 6 | English-language barrier | 2 explicit accounts |
| 7 | Fatigue, stress, health | 4 accounts |
| 8 | Administrative failure before the exam started | 1 account |
A single account often combines several of these causes. They describe what went wrong for candidates who had already failed; their counterpart on the method side — the study habits to correct before it comes to that — is covered in the mistakes to avoid when preparing for the CISSP.
Why does an overly technical preparation lead to failure?
It is the number one cause, by a wide margin. The archetype is the candidate who failed at question 113 with five years of security experience, expecting a technical exam. The top-voted reply in the thread, with 64 points, states the diagnosis bluntly:
“All the area you are strong in are great except they aren’t going to be on the cissp exam. It’s about making managerial choices and business decisions. The technical control answers are there to throw you off.”
The same diagnosis comes back for a network engineer who failed with five domains below the passing standard — “you have to stop thinking like an engineer and a super technician to pass it”. A candidate who passed on the second attempt sums up the shift: “The biggest mistake I made the first time was studying content instead of practicing decision-making questions”.
Can you fail by betting everything on mindset?
Yes, and it is the point most summaries leave out. Candidate accounts document the symmetrical mistake: relying solely on the much-repeated “think like a manager” advice causes failure just as much as a purely technical preparation. A twenty-year-old candidate failed at question 100 for exactly this reason:
“I decided to focus on the mindset foremost […] and let the technical knowledge take a bit of a backseat. This was a huge mistake. I was utterly blindsided by questions asking for technical applications of concepts I had never heard of.”
A participant coming out of a bootcamp makes the same observation about a whole cohort: many of them had been told that thinking like a manager would be enough, “that advice gave many of them a false sense of confidence, and several ended up failing”. The top-voted comment in that debate, with 51 points, offers the synthesis the accounts converge on: “KNOW the material like a technician, then APPLY that knowledge like a manager”.
Which study materials recur in the failures?
Four patterns recur. The single source, often free and superficial: “I ONLY studied with YouTube and the pdf of the study guide”. The outdated book, to which one candidate explicitly attributes his failure. Memorising the questions rather than the concepts: “I found myself memorizing the questions rather than actually understanding the concepts”, which ended up causing his failure. Finally, the one-week bootcamp followed by the exam a fortnight later, ending with five domains below the passing standard.
Candidate accounts do, however, contain an open disagreement about the volume of resources. One candidate who passed argues for focus — “focusing on one solid resource can be more beneficial than spreading yourself too thin” — while another claims the opposite: “I used all the material I could get my hands on”. What the passes have in common is not the number of materials but the fact of having changed at least one of them.
How does time management cause you to fail the exam?
It goes wrong in both directions. The first is plain lack of time — “Ran out of time and got to 117” — to which the top-voted reply answers with timed practice. Several accounts are identical.
The second is rushing, particularly after the hundredth question: “I failed mainly because I rushed after 100 questions”. Another candidate describes the faulty reasoning that produces this behaviour: “thinking if I didn’t complete the exam I would fail”. That is wrong, and the panic that leads to clicking at random has sunk several candidates. The pacing benchmarks you can use during the exam are gathered in time management in the exam.
Last comes reading the question stems too quickly, which those who passed treat as a skill in its own right: “ANSWER THE QUESTION BEING ASKED!!! Reading comprehension is important”. Hence the widely repeated image: read every question like a lawyer.
Are experience and English traps?
Experience protects less than people think, and it can turn into overconfidence:
“I have got ~19 years in Networking/Cloud Security, so I assumed CISSP and CCSP would be manageable. I went in overconfident… and failed both back-to-back.”
The mechanism is one of breadth: the exam covers eight domains, and expertise in one or two guarantees nothing about the other six. Candidate accounts include the case of a professional with more than ten years in a SOC who failed five times, and that of a cybersecurity director who writes that he began to doubt himself from the eleventh question onwards.
English is a distinct and real difficulty: “the wording of each question in the exam is too hard, as English is not my first Language”. The countermeasures described are laborious — repeated readings of the official guide, thousands of practice questions, a list of unknown words. The problem is not purely one of native language, either — native English speakers complain about it too: “You’d think being English helps with twisted sentences - nope.”
Can you lose your attempt before the exam even starts?
Yes, in two ways. The first is administrative. A candidate who arrived early was filling in his whiteboard without looking at the screen; the window for accepting the non-disclosure agreement expired. Verdict displayed: “Grade - Rejected”, exam fees lost. One comment quotes the test centre’s email: “Failure to read or accept the agreement within the allotted five minutes will result in your exam ending and a forfeit of your exam fees”. Hence the instruction: accept immediately, and start your brain dump only once the exam has been launched, since the timer starts only on the click that begins it.
The second way is physiological: “study as hard as I could all the way up until the hour of the exam. YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS. I dealt with a lot of brain fatigue at question 80”. Candidate accounts also include someone who had slept five hours in total over the preceding weekend. Sleep is not a comfort tip: it is one of the things that decides the result.
What does the question count at cut-off mean?
On a failure, the point at which the exam stops is information you can use. An early stop is the most unfavourable signal: “If you failed at 100 you are below on near all subjects (as it states on the paperwork)”. Conversely, a late stop means the algorithm could not decide sooner: “If you got to 150, you were right on the edge of passing”.
This reading is no consolation, but it gives direction. An early failure calls for a broad rework of the domains below the passing standard. A late failure calls for precision work: reading the stems, time management, choosing between two plausible answers. What a stop at the hundredth question means exactly, in either direction, is detailed in the exam that stops at 100 questions.
In both cases, the way forward is domain-by-domain work rather than a full re-read — the way of working offered by Cybridia, with 4,298 explained questions and 8 practice exams to rework your mistakes domain by domain.
Then comes the rest: when to re-register, what it costs, and what to change. That is the subject of the page retaking the CISSP after a failure — and our method describes where these accounts come from.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common cause of failure on the CISSP?
A preparation calibrated for a technical exam. About twelve of the thirty-four failure accounts describe a candidate who expected questions on cryptography, ports or protocols and instead faced decision questions. It is the number one cause in the accounts, far ahead of the others.
Is it true that only 20% of candidates pass on the first attempt?
No, that figure cannot be verified: it circulates in a comment that cites no source, and ISC2 does not publish pass rates. It is neither a reason for reassurance nor a reason for alarm.
Is thinking like a manager enough to pass the CISSP?
No, and candidate accounts document the opposite failure. One candidate who deliberately pushed technical knowledge into the background to focus on mindset failed at question 100. The wording the community settled on is: know the material like a technician, then apply it like a manager.
Can you fail because of English?
Yes, and it is a real difficulty rather than a marginal one, including for experienced candidates. The countermeasures described are extensive reading in English, a large volume of practice questions, and building a vocabulary list.
What does an exam that stops at question 100 on a failure mean?
It is the most unfavourable signal: the score report then shows a level below the passing standard on almost every domain. Conversely, a late stop on a failure means the algorithm could not decide, so the candidate was close to the standard.
Where does this information come from?
This article draws on the public reports of several thousand candidates, published over the last three years (24 July 2023 to 24 July 2026) and synthesised topic by topic. Quoted extracts are anonymised. Our method in detail.
- Retaking the CISSP after a failureHow long candidates wait before a new attempt, the amounts they report paying, and what the twenty-three candidates who failed and then passed actually changed.