Questions about my CIS-ITSM Retake

Stephen Broida · 4 weeks ago

In July, I took the CIS-ITSM Exam and didn't pass. It was my first attempt at the exam, and despite what I thought was adequate training and preparation, I found that the questions on the exam were wildly different than what I had expected. When I was practicing for the CAD, I was amazed at how closely the exam questions matched up with the sample questions I'd practiced with. With the CIS-ITSM Exam, it was like the entire format had changed. Instead of testing my knowledge, it seemed to be testing my experience instead (of which I had none since I'm studying this to get promoted to these sorts of positions).

Then, before I could go back and re-take the exam, there was an exam maintenance period and all main line exams were shut down for the rest of the month. I spent that time practicing additional courses on NowLearning; particularly ones focusing on Incident, Change, and Problem management. I'm now proceeding through the ITSM Implementation Simulator, and think I might be ready to re-take the exam afterward.

So my questions are:

1) Is the CIS-ITSM Re-take Exam different from the CIS-ITSM Exam you take on your first try? If so, how different is it?

2) I know that typical exam updates put 2-3 questions in for a new release, but I'm curious if this exam had any overhaul work done and if it's more or less the same as before the maintenance period or different? I ask this because when I complained about the Exam back in July, I heard that there was a lot of outdated material on the Exam (like a question I ran into asking about what you saw when you click Change Management > New from BEFORE the Paris release!!!)

3) Are there any kinds of questions I need to watch out for? Like questions about what the "Best Practice" for a given situation with a client would be, or if questions that are kind of outdated? Questions that might trip a test taker up?

Here's the breakdown of my scores from my first attempt:

Topic Level Scoring:
1 - Incident Management: 53%
2 - Problem Management: 77%
3 - Change Management: 53%
4 - Service Portfolio Management: 100%
5 - Request Fulfillment: 80%
6 - Configuration Management Database: 100%

Pradeep Thipani · 4 weeks ago

Hi @Stephen Broida ,

1) I believe most of the questions will remain the same and relevant to the previous ones.

2)You’re correct—there will likely be around 4 to 5 questions that differ from the previous release.

3) I recommend reviewing all the new release features and practicing related questions. In addition, go through the Now Learning courses, ServiceNow documentation, and eBook labs. These resources will help you gain a complete understanding of the CIS-ITSM exam.

Thanks,

Pradeep

"If this response was useful, please select 'Accept as Solution' and mark it as 'Helpful.' This helps me provide better answers and assists the community ".

Regards,
Pradeep

Sandeep Rajput · 4 weeks ago

@Stephen Broida Here are my few cents.

1) Is the CIS-ITSM Re-take Exam different from the CIS-ITSM Exam you take on your first try? If so, how different is it?

Answer: There is no change. A different questions set may come but there is no difference between the first exam and re-take.

2) I know that typical exam updates put 2-3 questions in for a new release, but I'm curious if this exam had any overhaul work done and if it's more or less the same as before the maintenance period or different?

Answer: There is a possibility that few questions from the current release may appear in the exam. Your best bet would be to review the release notes of the current release to see what's new.

3) Are there any kinds of questions I need to watch out for?

Answer:Watch out for the tricky questions. Do not rush while answering questions. Take sufficient time to read and understand the questions, sometimes we tend to choose answers quickly if a questions looks familiar to us. However, such questions may have some twist which one can't catch unless they read and understand the questions thoroughly.

Good luck for your exam.

Shashank_Jain · 4 weeks ago

@Stephen Broida ,

Answer to your questions :

1. I guess most of the questions will remain same.

2. There are no much changes in the question after a version change, hardly there will be 2-3 questions that would be updated not more than that.

3. There would be no much changes in the answer, I would recommend you to go through the mock tests available online and test your performance.

Note - Make sure to focus more on these two topics - Incident Management , Change Management.

Read the theory first , try different scenarios on PDI and give as many mock test possible!

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If this works, please mark it as helpful/accepted — it keeps me motivated and helps others find solutions.
Shashank Jain

Stephen Broida · 4 weeks ago

Does NowLearning or ServiceNow offer any mock tests of their own?

Previously, with CAD, I took Mock Tests on Udemy which proved to be extremely helpful and helped prepare me for the exam. For CIS-ITSM, the questions they asked were formatted in a way that wasn't on the mock tests I took. The biggest difference was that on the mock exams, it would ask something directly (i.e. "Which of the following is not a step in the Problem Management Lifecycle?") Whereas on the actual exam, it would ask something like "What is the exact name of the UI Policy you would need to edit in order to do XYZ?" or "Your client Bob Bobberbob is having an issue with ABC. What should you do first?"

If I could find some mock exams that were formatted more like the latter, it would help me a lot more. And after seeing the big difference between Udemy's mock tests and the actual exam, I'm wondering if there are any official mock tests directly from ServiceNow?