Everyone has their ways of preparing for a big test. I know that this is true with prepping for cybersecurity certification exams. I’ve done lots of that over the years, and my approach is simple:

  • Get the official study guide for the certification. Sometimes this can be bought directly from the certification provider (e.g. CompTIA, ISC(2), ISACA) - but nore often I’ve found that those are overpriced and I’ve gone with the guides from Sybex. I always make sure the study guide is current for the latest version of the exam as well.
  • Read the study guide cover to cover, even if I feel like I already know a lot of what’s covered in certain chapters.
  • Take notes. Lots and lots of notes, and then more notes :)
  • Take the practice test for each chapter of the study guide - take notes specifically on any questions I get wrong.
  • Once I’ve finished the study guide, take practice tests for the full exam.

I’m currently wrapping up my study for the Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) certification exam. I’ve finished the study guide, made my general notes and notes on chapter practice exam questions I’ve got wrong.

I’ve also taken two of the full exam,150 question practice tests and again made notes for items I got wrong. So now is the perfect time to be able to take quick, shorter practice exams for maybe a week, then take the full exams one more time, then schedule the exam.

And that’s where AI came in this weekend - Claude AI in this case, using its Artifacts feature that allows to create apps and a multitude of cool things very quickly, and lets you watch it code as it creates them.

Yesterday I started by giving Claude a simple prompt and (pasting in alongside my prompt) some notes on some correct answers I wanted to review:

I did that in the Claude web app and it worked well. Then I wanted to expand out from there, see if Claude could generate its own set of practice questions from across the domains covered in CISM, with no notes from me. And I wanted to to refresh my memory on whether Claude could do this on its mobile app. The answer to that second part is “absolutely” on its Android app, and the new quizzes generated from all the CISM domains are excellent.

Here’s the Claude Android app cooking up the first all domains quiz:

Claude creating new quiz on mobile app
Claude creating new quiz on mobile app

I took two of Claude’s quizzes yesterday. Today I took time to make notes for some new questions I didn’t get right and had Claude add those to its question set, and I love how fast and easy to do this with Claude. I’ve taken three more of its 20 to 25 question set quizzes today. Here are a few more things that have impressed me while doing this with Claude this weekend:

Seeing quiz results that show the overall score and the score for each of the domains covered in the CISM exam, which I did not even ask for:

Claude CISM quiz results by domain
Claude CISM quiz results by domain

Clear explanations for all the questions - as done with most quality practice exams, so you understand why an answer was right or why it was wrong.

Claude CISM answers review and explanation
Claude CISM answers review and explanation

This is a great example of how we can use AI to augment our work, not as a cheat code. Speaking of cheat codes one thing not to do when you are prepping for certification exams is to use “brain dump” sites or any resource that is based on exam takers who chose to violate the ethical standards of the exam and found ways to export the actual questions and answers they saw while taking it.

How do you prepare for a big test? Are you using AI at all?

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