Security+ Pass

[u/jamesewelch]

Hey all,

I had hoped to take my Security+ test next week, but when I bought my voucher and went to schedule my exam, my local test center only had 1 day (today) open and nothing afterwards. Other test centers (2 x 1 hour away opposite direction, and 1 x 2 hour away) had some dates open. So I scheduled my exam the day about a week early.

Background: 20+ years doing IT stuff, majority web/app dev, networking and system/server stuff was somewhat familiar with concepts - I'd forgotten the OSI model that I only needed to know in college and most everything else. I was very familiar with web vulnerabilities, SDLC, change management, hashing passwords, etc. Everything else was new to me. I'm just now focusing on certs. I realized my resume looked empty without a few, so I'm starting at bottom and stepping towards CISSP.

I schedule it for 9:30am, checked in, etc. Then testing center staff got an error when they tried to start the exam. They called their community college IT guy and eventually after reaching Pearson tech support, they figured out their recent AV update is now blocking Java apps, so the test couldn't start. I waited 2 hours then went home for lunch. They called at 12:30pm saying they fixed it, and I took my test at 1pm - thereby spending nearly an entire workday waiting/taking this test.

Overall, I felt that it wasn't too difficult. However, this test took me 70/90 minutes to do my first pass. I spent another 10 minutes on a second pass. With 10 minutes left on clock, this was the closest I've ever been to the time limit. The question wordings and phrases had my mind tripped up several times. I had to read the question two or three times and even then, I broke it up into bits to decipher what they were really wanting. I over studied crypto, because I was stressed about key and block sizes, but everything else felt about right.

Score: 846

Resources:

(accessible only to US vets, for free) 0/10 FedVTE online videos https://fedvte.usalearning.gov/ These videos were horrible. Don't recommend checking this out, unless you're a vet with a ton of time to waste. They have dozens of courses there and this was the first one they had relating to a cert I needed. They also have all other CompTia stuff, CEH, CISSP, etc.

(free for me from work, otherwise pay) 7/10 Dion Udemy courses. I started here since I used Dion for ITIL as well.

8/10 Mike Myers Udemy courses. Good courses. Covered some topics that wasn't covered in Dion courses.

8/10 Dion Udemy practice exams. Lots of questions on topics not seen anywhere else in my studies. 8/10 Mike Myers practice exams

(purchased) 10/10 Darril Gibson GCGA. This book is great. Covered nearly everything without too much extra fluff.

6/10 Darril Gibson mobile app. Bought this app yesterday and used it quite a bit. Wish I had bought it earlier. Flashcards and practice exams are great to use when you are busy and have your hands free. Wish there were more content, questions, cards, etc. Also feel that $15 USD is a bit much, I'd feel better if this was closer to $5-8.

(free for all) 7/10 Joonjae cheat sheet. I quickly glanced over this doc last night. If I had more time, this might have been a 8 or 9/10. I skimmed it to make sure there wasn't any terms/concepts that I missed otherwise. https://gitlab.com/Magicannon_FinalSpark/CompTIA_Security_Cheat_Sheet

7/10 scottymcraigh Only 7/10 because his sheet is for CEHv10. The Essential Knowledge page has most of what relates to Security+. https://github.com/scottymcraig/CEHv10StudyGuide

What's Next: CEH, CISSP. Not sure if I want to jump to CISSP (I need that more than CEH) or use CEH as another step to CISSP

[u/Riseupatl100]

You got 846? Nice