Customer Reviews

The CISA Prep Guide: Mastering the Certified Information Systems Auditor Exam

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I am an IS professional with 25 years of experience but it's been 6 years since I took a certification test. I needed the book to codify what I already knew from experience. I found the actual subject matter of the book to be adequate, but the author often took 500 words to say what could have been said in 50. And then he often said it wrong! And with bad grammer and incomplete sentences. I was as angry at the book editor as I was with the author. I kept thinking that English must not be the author's native language, but even so, the editor didn't do his job. That's probably why an updated version has not been issued. Get a new author! Get a new editor!

The software also was bad. I have used Boson software and tests before and found them very good. The test engine may work great, but if the data is wrong, it doesn't matter how great the engine is.

Bottom line - don't buy this book. Get the ISACA study materials. It'll cost three times a much, but it'll be worth it.

This book came last year, it does not cover the CISA objectives. Too verbose and lot of filler. If you need something easy, quick and direct, there are better resources like "CISA Study Guide in EasyFAQs"

I purchased this book in Amazon with lot of hope to get a outsider's view on the CISA. Unfortunately there is no consistency in the chapters and I am afraid to what extent this is going to help me in preparing for the CISA. Now I have to buy some more materials before taking the test. The CD is totally absurd with wrong answers. The explanatory answers points to option 'D' while the answer is marked as Option 'C'. Unless the author comes with a revised version early, this book is not going to be helpful for CISA Preparation.

I bought this book because I had a positive experience with the CISSP Prep Guide book. I also bought the ISACA CISA study guide. While I was waiting for the ISACA study guide to arrive, I read the first 2-3 chapters of the Kramer CISA Prep Guide. I thought it was somewhat high-level and superficial. Then when the ISACA material arrived, I realized that reading the Kramer book was a complete waste of time. I dont think there's any way you could pass the CISA test by reading Kramer's book. I stopped reading it when I saw that the Isaca material is much more detailed, and so much more representative of the actual test.

This book is not worth the time it takes to read. I was optimistic when I purchased the book based on the positive experience of other titles by the publisher. However, this book is poorly written. It appears rushed and does not spend the time needed to explain/expand key ideas/concepts.

There isn't a single graphic depiction in the entire book which is dedicated to IS audit. There are numerous typos and the writing style can get monotonous and difficult.

I generally find books on IT and audit as interesting but this one put me to sleep every time. The material was written in such an uninteresting and boring manner that my mind constantly wandered to other topics. The book definitely did not keep my interest.

I generally keep these exam review books as reference guides in my jobs. This one is going back on re-sale - assuming someone buys it after reading these reviews.

Very disappointing.

I purchased this book -- unfortunately before I read the reviews here -- to prepare for the CISA. Despite the optimistic title, the book fails to deliver in just about every area. The book is not connected to the exam in any logical form or structure. One of the biggest draws for a book like this is the practice test software. Sadly, this book fails yet again. The software works, but the questions in some cases are just plain wrong! I wrote to the editor and they offered me an errata sheet that I could use to spot mistakes in their data???? What good is that? My advice is that you skip this book, avoid this author, and not patronize this publisher since they are not willing to make good on their promises.

I read the book before my CISA review manual arrived. Then after I looked at ISACA 600 review questions, I realized what a waste of time to read this book and a waste of money to buy it. This book is totally unfocused and in no way "connected" to those review questions. The review manual of ISACA in contrast is better.

Why use 1 word when 12 will bewilder the reader and make the book that much thicker. I can not believe that a qualified editor reviewed this book.

The wheat to chaff ratio is horrendous. You can go whole paragraphs without coming upon anything worth knowing.

I can only hope that the actual CISA exam questions are not written as poorly as the sample questions within this book.

If you value your time, do not buy this book.

I gave this book 2 stars because it's overpriced, misaligned, bloated and quite boring. Lots of time, Kramer used 200 words to explain something when 50 would have been enough. There's alot of minor errors + many cases where the author is completely wrong. The content covers CISA's material but it simply does not match with CISA's domains. If I had to throw a stone to someone, that would be to the editor cos that guy simply did not do his job. There's way too many content errors, spelling mistakes and ambiguous sentences.

To wrap thing up, it's a subpar book with an hefty price tag. I would NOT recommand it to anyone taking an ISACA exam. Your $$$ would be better spent buying the official CRM 2006.

I was looking for a reference to assist in passing a ridiculously tough exam, and this was not it. I recommend you simply get a copy of the test exam and run it over and over to get a feel for the way the test writers chose to score. The CISA exam is a remarkably subjective exam, and really depends on the frame of mind the writers were in while choosing which answer would be "correct"...

I passed the first try by simply running through the test questions a time or two. But on the other hand, I am a phenomenal test taker (I used to ace college tests without ever having studied or even shown up to class...) so take it as you will.