Information Technology Certified Associate builds your IT knowledge and skills in five essential work-related domains certificate programs that stack up to one career-advancing ISACA certification.
Virtual Instructor-Led Training
Get the best of both worlds: personal interaction with expert instructors and the convenience of an online classroom. Expand your understanding of everything from audit and assurance to information security, cybersecurity, and managing reporting on risk. Our expert training will guide you through the critical concepts needed to master the ITCA exam.
Read The ISACA’s Exam Candidate Information Guide
Every year, ISACA publishes an updated version of its candidate guide. It provides lots of practical information for the ITCA exam. The latest version is freely available from the ISACA website.This should be used to review important topics such as exam registration, deadlines and key details for exam-day administration. It even contains valuable information such as the exam domains, the number of exam questions, exam length and languages. No candidate should take the ITCA exam without reading this guide.The program is ideal for Students or Recent Graduates,Candidates who have little or no experience in IT,Candidates looking to reskill or upskill,Professionals in non-IT roles looking to build-up baseline skills.
Time Management
Next, you want to consider your time management on the day of. There are 150 (down from 200 previously) questions to be answered in four hours. This means that you have ~70 seconds per question. You may answer some quick, and you may take longer for others. Therefore, you must track the time periodically. There will be a clock in the exam room to help you keep track.
My suggestion is to allow 1 hour for every 50 questions. Depending on how fast/slow you progress, you can slow down/speed up accordingly. You can get an idea for how you will do on the mock exam practices, but you won’t know for certain until you’re in there on exam day.
Also, the questions do not appear based on the sequence of the domains, so don’t waste time figuring out which domain a question belongs. Just answer and move along.
Critical Success Factors To Pass
It has been observed that individuals with technical background constantly encounter complications in understanding the concepts of governance and auditing, as they concentrate more on the technical aspects. This is a strong reason for not being able to perform as an individual must also look at the holistic approach to thinking from a manager’s or an auditor’s perspective.
And on the other hand, it becomes difficult for an individual with auditing and accounting background to understand the technical topics. Such students/candidates need to work on the core concepts and objective of a technology being developed.
Whereas, the most experienced professionals try to apply their own techniques which turn out to be unreliable. It is recommended for you to solely consider ISACA’s techniques as these are globally accepted, practical and is standardized.
Many candidates have the knowledge required to pass the ITCA exam, but about half failed on their first try. Your knowledge, and probably, more importantly, your ability to pick the correct answer, is the key to success.
For the purpose of the exam, answer the question the “ISACA way”. Don’t answer questions based on your personal experience unless it is in line with ISACA thinking. This is all about thinking like the test creators. If you’re ever unsure about a question, or feel like there could be more than one right answer, use this policy to guide you.
Familiarize With The Exam Question Format
The ITCA Exam Questions can be broadly categorized as Conceptual that tests your knowledge of fundamentals related to technology and auditing standards and Practical that tests your ability to understand a scenario and apply concepts in real business situations.
There may be few questions on core technologies, such as encryption, EDI, internet security and telecommunications control. You are however not required to study specific technology platforms, such as SAP, Oracle, and SQL.
Put On The ISACA Hat When Answering Questions
As you go through the practice questions, learn how ISACA asks the questions. First, read the questions very carefully – quickly but word by word. They can be quite wordy, tricky and sometimes, even appear subjective. Most tricky questions have at least one choice as the “distractor”. People fall into the trap if they don’t read the question carefully, not clear on the concepts, or rely on “gut feeling” when answering questions.
Therefore, for each question, you should read the question carefully, eliminate the distractor and obviously incorrect answer(s) to narrow the choice and pick the best answer.
CRISC Exam Content - Difficulty Level
Five individual certificates in five domains are required to earn the ITCA certification. Each certificate is valuable on its own, but together they make a strong statement affirming both the depth and breadth of your knowledge, skills, and professional drive—all qualities that employers want to see in their hires.
1
Candidates with neither audit nor IT experience
Studying for the actual exam may take up to 6 months. There are reference books listed at the bottom of this page if you need background information on IT auditing. It is better if you can get both the official ITCA Review Manual for core studying, and one of the supplementary books for further explanation on the concepts. The ISACA Questions Database is a must for lots of practice.
2
Candidates with some audit or IT experience
You may need around 3 months for exam preparation. If you are an auditor, get the technology perspective; if you are an IT professional, get the audit perspective. Then, read the book and spend sufficient time in practice questions.
3
Seasoned IT auditing professionals
You probably only need a month to prepare. Start skimming through the ITCA book and get familiar with the terms used by ISACA. Then, focus on practice questions and mock exam.
