CISM Review Manual, 15th Edition

I just passed the CISM yesterday. I started out in December with one of the other cheaper books, and after finishing it, I only did marginally better on the practice exams. On the other hand, this is the official book directly from ISACA, so all material in the book is accurate, relevant, and helpful in passing the exam. It’s well edited and well written too. If you’re paying $760 for an exam, don’t get cheap when it comes to the study material. Break over and get the real thing.

Its a review manual...you know what you signed up for.

Between the book and Q&A database I passed my CISM exam first attempt. I read the book front to back then went back and went through key objectives.

The only thing I can say is that I used this book and passed the CISM. Great book! I actually learned a lot from this.

Updated my original review from positive to negative.No matter how many times I try to read this book, it’s written in a horrible language style. Overly wordy, lots of complex words to describe simple ideas, everything in table format. Best way to describe this is like hearing someone speak Queens English at a collegial level, while your a farmer from a small town. You know with an overemphasis of language for purposes of trying to impress and sound smart. But really, you are just being arrogant and condescending in a completely unnecessary way.After repeated attempts to focus and read through these materials, decided to scrap this book altogether. To add context, I purchased this book a few years ago and still haven’t made coherence of these materials. I have several other professional certs, including my CISSP, and 20+ years direct experience. And finally gave up using this book. I hate to waste, especially given this book cost 3x more than other study guides. But making the switch today.I would rather sit down and read the Chicago Manual of Style rather than read another page of this book.

While the book adequately covers the info, it could really have used a good editor to keep it from feeling very redundant.

I managed to read through this word soup by giving myself a "5 pages per day rule". Otherwise it is completely impenetrable. I have 8 years of experience in the field, and reading this book is one of the toughest challenges I have had so far. Unfortunately not in a good way.I do not believe reading this book is necessary in order to pass the exam, but you do need to familiarize yourself with the different concepts in security management. You should preferrably try elsewhere, reading shorter literature, white papers etc. Pretty much anything will be better than going through this book.Here are the major problems with the book- Huge amount of redundancy. An editor should reduce this down to 25%- Too many words. In striving to describe concepts and processes accurately and completely, the content drowns in words. Definitions become so wide, so vague, telling the reader everything and nothing at the same time.- No examples, just theory. And this is not a theoretical subject - security management needs experience, not theory. So without years of just that, you will really struggle to see clearly what exactly each paragraph is trying to tell you- "Helpful" images and tables are mostly unhelpful. These things are meant to simplify for the reader, but does nothing of the sort. Usually just copy pasted from some framework, probably so that the writer could feel he is offloading some of the stuff he might forget to put in words.If you are determined to read this book I would do this- Read headings, get the most important definitions and concepts, skip most of the content- Purchase any used, old edition, don't pay the horrific price tag of the new version- Leave a review like this

I purchased the Review Manual and the Questions, Answers & Explanations Manual together. I was extremely disappointed to receive two paperback books for the price of hardback, scholarly books. My only guess is that these books are geared toward a college course on the CISM; otherwise they would let the purchaser know that he/she was purchasing softback books. Maybe that point was in the description and I overlooked. At any case, I've already marked in the book so I can't return it. I recommend not purchasing this book at this price and going with another vendor for less cost and better sturdiness.

Estoy satisfecha con el producto, llego en buenas condiciones y los más importante es que el precio que obtuve fue similar al que hubiera recibido por comprar la membresía en la página de ISACA directamente.

Necessary for the CISM exam but a very dry read. Lots of relevant and useful content but it's not accessible. However I guess this is a review manual not a guidebook.Considering the price the print quality is pretty poor and you'll need to look after this book if it's going to survive very long.

Good manual to read for the CISM exam though a bit raw with some of the content...they should try to add some practical examples for IS security than being too theoretical...otherwise the content is rich...managed to pass the CISM exam at first attempt...one needs to supplement the manual with database quesitions