OXY NERD

How I Passed Security+ On My First Go


So I've taken abit of a depature from my creative coding for a wee while... Not to worry though. The creativity has not gone. My time has just been taken up with all things cybersecurity for the last couple of months. I have been interested in the security side of I.T since I touched on an aspect of it during a project for a client. Long story short, I moved upto Auckland to complete a Diploma in Cybersecurity!!


It has been going well but just like I always do, I decided to delve deeper and after hearing from people in the field thought it would be a good idea to get myself a CompTIA Security+ certification.
Well that sure did add to the workload but, along with a good friend of mine who decided to take it aswell, we passed!! And both with scores over 800!!


Now I'm no expert on all things Security+ but I learnt alot about the process along the way and thought it might be nice to share some of the knowledge aquired. So below is a very rough guide of how I passed first go and some material that my buddy and I found helpful. Hopefully you get some use out of it. I've also split all the resources into a list at the bottom that you can skip to if you don't want to read the rest.


1. Gather Resources


Ahhh the classic "Gather materials" line, its stupid but one bit i didn't really have help was with this. If I was to go back through the course again not knowing anything, the first thing I would do is to print off the official CompTIA Security+ objectives and when studying mark off what I had learnt. This will save alot of pain later, trust me.

Other than that, a work book to write things out (I went through one plus some of another) and potentially some study-guides. If you purchase the bundle with the exam retake off the CompTIA website you get a study guide with it that I can definitely recommend. Also at this point I downloaded some security+ quiz apps for my cellphone to use as I went through material. These weren't always the best but they helped me familirized with the content. A few that I found to be good were: Pocket Prep Security+, CompTIA Security+ and Darril Gibson Security+


2. Work Through a Course


I started by working through a Security+ course that was available to me on Linux Academy. That was great, if a little bit dry, as it just gave key points but had some great small quizzes to do as you progressed through each model. However it looks as though Linux Academy was brought out and it's resources transitioning onto another platform (A Cloud Guru). Now my mate had gone through a Mike Meyers course that he found great. If you can grab it on special over at Udemy it is great value for money (over 20 hours of content). When touching up on some subjects that I still didn't understand later I found that Mike Meyers explained them real well. Another course, alot like Mike Meyers, is Professor Messor. He has a similar style but all of his content is free. He makes money from selling some of his precompiled notes and practice tests that I'll talk about soon. And while I didn't use the audio content, as i discovered only shortly before I had the exam, I believe it would be useful to listen to when walking about.


3. Start Using Practice Tests


Once I had worked through a course my first course I was getting like 60-70% in tests. So obviously, I had some work to do. I would start taking practice tests and mark any areas I wasn't doing well in and then revise thoughs - try to learn more and then do another tests. I did alot of tests. The best ones I found were ones that Mike Meyers sells on Udemy and the Professor Messor Practice exams. Both give 3 of them. I defintely recommend them both. As stated above Professor Messor has some great practices exams that I used right up to just before I took the test. They also include some examples of what the performance based questions look like.


4. Doing the Actual test


I was always told that people like to book the exam in early on in their study to give themselves a timeframe to do the study. I think for some people this is a smart idea. I booked it in rather late in to my study about 3 weeks before I did it. I didn't feel prepared as I was scoring between 70-90% but wanted to be scoring 90% consistantly. It wasn't until the week before that I really started getting some things that had taken me awhile to click over.

Once in the exam, mark any question that you are unsure about with a flag which will allow you to review it before you submit the test. I skipped the interactive questions at the start to make sure I had enough time to get through the test and came back to them towards the end. The good thing about the whole way they do the tests is you find out your mark after completing a short survey at the end of the exam (it doesn't count towards your total time).


5. Final Notes


I don't think anything can prepare you for the test as no one is allowed to say what is on it. However if you take time to truely understand the material on the exam objectives you should be fine. Make sure you are getting exam notes for the version of the exam you are doing. Most of the content I have listed here is for the 501 but should be updating for the latest material soon. This has probably been the most I've ever studied for a single test and while it was hard, it is not unachieveable. I hope this has been helpful. Goodluck!!


Resources:


Places to find Full Video Courses:


Practice Tests and Exams:

Phone Apps For Study:
  • Pocket Prep Security+
  • Darril Gibson Security+
  • CompTIA Security+

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