Failed my first CAD attempt in January with a 68%, which was brutal since I'd been working with CyberArk for about two years. The vaulting and session isolation concepts weren't the problem – it was the policy enforcement and safe management questions that kept tripping me up on scenario-based items.
Second time I dedicated 8 weeks, about 90 minutes a day on weekdays and 3 hours on Saturdays. I completely rebuilt how I approached the privileged access management sections by working through real deployment scenarios rather than just memorizing definitions. Scored 84% on the retake and the shift in mindset made a huge difference.
The exam leans heavily on implementation scenarios rather than pure theory, so if you're just reading documentation without applying it mentally, you're going to struggle. The PSM versus PTA distinction showed up in multiple different forms and caught me off guard the first time around.
Anyone else find the SSH key management questions particularly tricky? Happy to share my topic-by-topic breakdown if anyone's currently prepping – the CyberArk official blueprint is actually pretty accurate about what shows up.
Good point about scenarios vs. memorization. I passed on my first try last November with 79% and I'd say 70% of the questions were “given this environment, what do you do” type situations. Pure flashcard cramming won't get you there.
Congrats on passing. I'm about 4 weeks into my prep and the policy enforcement stuff is exactly where I keep losing points on practice tests. Did you use any third-party study materials or stick to CyberArk's own docs?
Also curious how long the exam runs – I keep seeing different numbers online ranging from 90 to 120 minutes.
My company is pushing everyone on the security team to get CAD this quarter, so this thread is really helpful. Roughly how much hands-on CyberArk experience would you say you need before the content starts clicking?
The SSH key questions wrecked me too on my first attempt. What helped was drawing out the trust relationships between the vault and target machines on paper rather than trying to hold it in my head. Takes more time up front but the retention is way better.
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