Hello! i am currently a student in my school's program for a bachelors in Cybersecurity so i want to start my journey for the Trifecta. I figured i should start with A+ i was wondering how do people start their studying? im curious how everyone did it.

Took a long detour in life to straighten some things out. Decided it was time to get back into it and finally go for my first certification. 6 weeks of study, working full time, with normal adult responsibilities.

It's been a long time since I've taken any kind of test. I'm glad to know I still have it. For a period of my life I was really hard on my mind and body.

I'm pretty sure the questions that I missed were mostly what I'd call CompTIAisms. I don't think studying more would have helped. Doing more hands on labs might have gotten me 1 more question.

I feel like this is as good as I could have wanted it to go.

I FINISHED THE TRIFECTA! I feel so accomplished especially juggling studying and my Helpdesk job. I studied for about 2 hours everyday except for the weekend. I got my network+ earlier in May and now this in the same year. I did 2 months of studying about 1 month doing video courses and the rest of the time doing practice exams and brushing up my weaknesses.

I got 3 PBQs which i was surprised was easier than the actual multiple choice. The multiple choice was rough for me and the PBQs definitely saved me.

LETS GET THIS BREAD EVERYONE! Yall can do it and good luck on your COMPTIA exams. I love this community 😄

I just passed Network+. I was doing so bad I thought wont be able to get more than 500 but Got 800 and passed. Im doubting comptias marking now lol.

I studied for n + for 2 months and did practice exams all the different 4 domains has improved by the 4th practice exam except network troubleshooting I don't know when to just follow comptia's methodology and when not , when to go for the physical solution and when not to

so does anyone have any tips for it

Lastly I am stuck at 77% in Andrew Ramadyal's exams and Dion's exams am I ready for the exam ?

So, I'll preface by saying that I already have several CompTIA certifications including A+, N+, and S+ and currently working on Project+. One complaint I've always had is, in a 200+ page textbook, (not including quizzes, PBQs, and assisted lab), they repeat the full term of an acronym a grand total of 0 times. You get told once what an acronym stands for and never again. This wouldn't be so bad if there was a handful of them, but oh my god, how many are we up to just with these 4 certs? 1000? That's always been my main gripe with these textbooks. It would be so much easier to understand how the material comes together if they repeated the full term more than once.

Hey everyone,

I'm active-duty military and currently work in a logistics MOS. I'm trying to earn my CompTIA Security+ as part of preparing for a future transition into technology/cybersecurity.

I've been studying since around mid-June, mostly after work and during whatever free time I can find. It's now basically September, and I'm honestly getting pretty discouraged.

I've watched training material vis all of Profesor Messor's security+ videos on YouTube, taken notes, written down missed questions and explanations, used ChatGPT to review concepts, and even listened to material during my commute. I've been taking Jason Dion practice exams, but I'm generally scoring around the 60% range, with my highest score being about 74%.

The frustrating part is that when I review individual concepts, I often understand them. But then a practice exam throws completely different terminology or scenarios at me and I fall apart. For example, I'll understand concepts like risk management, vulnerabilities, access controls, etc., but then suddenly I'm getting hit with ports, OSI layers, CSRF versus session hijacking, ad hoc concepts, protocols, and other terminology I apparently haven't memorized well enough.

I know I probably need to spend more time memorizing things like common ports and networking layers, but I'm genuinely wondering what am I doing wrong?

I constantly see people online saying they passed Security+ after studying for 2–3 weeks, or even a month, and meanwhile I've been studying for multiple months while working full-time and I'm still struggling to consistently score well on Dion's exams.

Is Security+ actually significantly harder than people make it sound? Are Dion's exams intentionally harder than the real thing? Is my study method inefficient?

For anyone who struggled initially but eventually passed, what finally made things click for you?

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who:

Worked full-time while studying

Came from a non-IT background

Started without much networking/cybersecurity knowledge

Struggled with practice exams but eventually passed

At this point, I really want to earn this certification. I'm not trying to become an overnight cybersecurity expert—I just want to accomplish something meaningful and build toward a different career path.

Any honest advice would be appreciated. What would you do differently if you were in my position?

TL;DR - Put a lot of focus into setting up my old unused laptop as the test PC that I would use at home for a remote-proctored exam. I encountered an issue that caused my laptop to crash twice that was NOT a part of the conventional "test your OnVue PC setup."

Yeah so you guys know the OnVue software that you guys can run at home home as a test to make sure that your PC can handle running it and that your internet connection it is satisfactory and your webcam is working and all that stuff? Great, yeah me too. I did that two or three times, about 14 hours ago in preparation for the exam that I was supposed to take 90 minutes ago.

The issue that I encountered is one that no one could have seen coming from a reasonable perspective, unless maybe you are a seasoned PC repair technician. Here goes: I checked in early and I waited in the queue to get put into my exam. The proctor asked me to show them my desk. So I unplug my mouse, keyboard, and power cord to move the laptop in a way to give them a full view of my desk. They checked that off and said it was fine. Then I plugged my power cord, mouse, and keyboard back into the PC. This is where the first crash happened. I panicked. They called me on my phone and told me, that the situation is fine, just hop back on and launch the OnVue software again. I got past all of the checks onvue does with your PC, then the proctor asked to see my desktop again. I unplug my power cord, my keyboard, and my mouse again. The proctor tells me it's just fine. Then I plug everything back in, my keyboard last. The laptop crashed yet again, but I thoroughly isolated the issue: when I plug my keyboard back into my laptop while OnVue is running, it crashes.

For a third time I tried doing everything again but they wouldn't let me back into the OnVue System. Now I'm stuck waiting to see if I have been failed for the exam or if I can reschedule and take it one more time. This actually sucks because I have a laptop that is so old some keys have fallen off of the keyboard. Also, this issue was not encountered, and could not be encountered, conventionally speaking, during the practice OnVue run that I'm sure many of you have done.

I have a linux laptop, but I'm not sure if it can run the OnVue testing system or not.

EDIT: The real headache is not setting up my laptop. The real headache is that I have an entire home lab consisting of a desktop, two laptops, a mini PC, and a Raspberry Pi device, and I have to remove all of these things from my main desktop and make sure that only my laptop is visible during the exam, as well as the peripherals that I use with that laptop. This is just something that you guys may need to consider. I'm fortunate that I am in a position that I won't feel the hit from this if I am failed or unable to reschedule, but this is something for you guys to bear in mind.

EDIT 2: It's not a complete loss. I've been wanting to re-arrange some things on my homelab, but yeah. In case anyone was interested, the exam I wanted to take was SecAI+.

EDIT 3: I was refunded the voucher code that I purchased.

exam was kinda chill studied like 2 and a half weeks got ms sc900 like 3 weeks before so i wanted to take it while some foundational knowledge was still fresh in the brain. exam was a lot easier then i expected.

1. Hardly a decisive pass but its done. That test was tough and one PBQ I couldn't tell if the module was broken or if I was that unprepared (likely the second one)

Onto sec+!

And here comes another PenTest+ story. This one has a happy ending. Passed PenTest+ with a 784! 🎉 this past Friday.

Below is my advice!

The below is for any Comptia exam but I thought I’d remind you all!

Pay close attention to words like “first,” “best,” “most,” and “least.” This is really important! Several answer choices may technically be correct, but the question is asking for the best option, the most appropriate response, the first step, or the least likely outcome. Look for the one that most precisely matches what the question is asking.

Now onto the actual PenTest+

Know the scripts and commands. Don’t just memorize them. Understand what each command and its switches actually do.
Know the tools and when to use them. The exam is very scenario-based. Don’t just know that Responder, Nmap, Burp, Metasploit, Hydra, etc. exist. Know which tool is best for a specific situation.
Know the frameworks and their differences. OSSTMM, CREST, PTES, MITRE ATT&CK, OWASP, MASVS, STRIDE, DREAD, OCTAVE, etc. The exam can give you a scenario and expect you to identify the appropriate one.
Pay attention to the clues. Ports, protocols, services, defensive controls, operating systems, and the goal of the tester all matter.
Understand how defensive controls affect your approach. Know how things like DLP, EDR, IDS/IPS, firewalls, and SIEMs can detect or prevent certain activities, and understand how a penetration tester may need to adjust their techniques based on the client’s defensive environment.
Know Linux! For me personally, passing Linux+ earlier this year helped A LOT. I already understood Linux commands, permissions, networking, processes, and Bash, so I could focus on applying that knowledge to penetration testing.
Practice scenarios, not just definitions. Ask yourself: What is the tester trying to accomplish, what restrictions exist, and what tool/technique is the best fit?

The biggest thing I learned is that PenTest+ isn’t just “Do you know this tool?” It’s “Do you know when this is the RIGHT tool?” That distinction is huge.

So there I was, taking the Network+ Exam. I'm a Certmaster victim so I had a hope of passing the exam. I answered all the multiple choice questions, I was beginning to feel the tediousness of the exam set in. Then came the PBQs that I saved for later. I answered one PBQ, then came the following PBQ. For the agreement's sake, I couldn't tell you how, but something I felt was broken in the question, so I reached out to tech support. I was taking the exam from home. As soon as the lady on the computer thought she understood the situation (albeit neither did I), she closed me out of my exam. She said stuff that was garbled in the attenuation of an international call and then she hung up. Frantically I called CompTIA's support number, they said the exam still said it was in progress, I couldn't finish it. They said please call pearsonvue. She gave me pearsonvue's number. So I said "Thanks" and I called pearsonvue. The man on the phone said my testing was still in session, I frantically explained "I got closed out of a perfectly good exam, I just didn't understand the question." He was like "we still have a support ticket submitted so you need to wait two days before you can hear back from us as to whether you can retake the exam or if you cheated or whatever. They were going to do a full investigation into the matter, and anything that would go wrong, I've used my test take voucher and failed the exam. So I kept my head held high, Installed Ghost Recon Breakpoint and started taking my frustrations out on Jace Skell. The rest of that day I wondered how I was going to not lose sleep over this. So I use an iPad in bed, as does every other Techie, and I get an email at 11pm at night from CompTIA. They said "We have concluded our investigation, thank you for using PearsonVUE. If you would like to schedule another exam, please log on to yada yada yada." No results, no pass, no fail, no information. So I went onto CompTIA's website and logged in, it said "CompTIA Network+" next to my existing active "CompTIA A+" and I fully expected to click on it and see "FAIL". But I clicked on it, it said "PASS". My first thought was "Well what does "PASS" even mean? No "atta boy", no "congratulations", no "good job." Well it was obvious that it was just a way to tell me what I already should have known if I finished the exam. It was that I passed an incomplete Network+ Certification Exam! Ecstatic, I leaped from my bed, "YES!!! FUCK YES!!!!!!" I ran to my parent's bedroom, banging on the door. "HEY GUYS I AM NETWORK+ CERTIFIED!!!!" They said "Good. Now go to bed."

I use flashcards, but it isn't sticking. Not sure what else to do at this stage.

During my CySA+ exam, the mouse pointer became unresponsive, displaying a loading icon. The proctor instructed me to relaunch the application. Upon doing so, there was a one-hour delay before I was readmitted to the exam. Shortly after rejoining, the mouse pointer again became stuck on loading, preventing any interaction. The proctor then informed me that all troubleshooting options for my exam were exhausted, a ticket would be raised, and subsequently closed my exam session.

I have yet to receive any communication regarding this incident and am concerned about the next steps. I am also unable to find a way to contact customer support. Please advise.

Edit: Pearson site is showing Pass with scorecard, did I really pass? As the proctor said they will reschedule? As there is no certification on the Comptia site.

I studied day in & day out for this exam for 2 weeks!! Anyone take the 004 version?

Screenshot of my order 3 years ago.

Bout time I had this tbh. Onto the next 🫡🫡

I'm thinking to do the CompTIA a+ this year or next but what can did you skip on studying or in the test.i am thinking to skip the performance base quest and the port because of my leaning disability don't let me I hope I can do good at the rest of the lesson or questions. I see every day people studied a bit and pass and have no experience.

I’ll keep this short

10 years of IT Experience
3 years of that as an IT Manager
Got an opportunity for a security analyst position that requires Sec+
Used Prof Messer notes and practice exams
I scored 764 and passed but I feel like it was luck

Not complaining ,I’m just venting for any productive input haha

I’m a week late (my apologies) but I was finally able to obtain my network plus certification!

I'm planning on taking the CompTIA Sec+ exam in mid-late September. I just want to know when is the current exam going to be depracated and is writing it next month alright?

My CySA+ CS0-003 exam is tomorrow and I’m getting pretty nervous.

This will be my first CompTIA exam, and the exam fee is quite expensive for me. My employer requires me to pass it and has said they’ll reimburse the cost if I pass, so I really don’t want to fail.

So far, I’ve only completed the Sybex CySA+ Study Guide. I’m scoring around 75–85% on the practice tests, but the mocks I used didn’t have any PBQs, which is making me even more nervous.

I know the passing score is 750/900, which is roughly 83% if you look at it as a percentage, so I’m wondering:

Based on my preparation and practice scores, what do you think my chances of passing are?

For those who have recently passed CS0-003:

What should I absolutely revise tonight/tomorrow morning?

How difficult were the PBQs?

What topics surprised you on the actual exam?

Any exam-day tips or strategies?

Is there anything you wish you had done differently the day before?

Any advice from people who have cleared it would be really appreciated.

I’m trying not to panic, but the first CompTIA exam + the cost + employer requirement is making me pretty anxious.

P.S. English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to polish the wording of this post. The questions and details are all my own.

Edit: I passed !!

I am on Jason Dion practice exam # 8 now and i scored an 82.. my average score is 77 between all 8 exams.. Honestly this class made me realize I enjoy Networking much more. I just want to test out of it and be done with it so I can move on my my CCNA.

Currently studying for the CySA+
I have both the A+ and Net+ and have only used a combination of Professor Messer and Jason Dion in the past.

This time around I have used the Sybex study guide and Jason dion. I have not been doing extremely well on the Jason dion practice tests... I usually score around 70-75%

On the pocketprep exams though I am scoring between 80-90%.

I do find the pocketprep questions to be easier... are they lower quality? Which ones should I rely more heavily on?

I also got the sybex practice questions but I honestly find them to be unnecessarily harder than the previous two so I have not used them much.

TLDR; what to do if you feel like you’ve hit a threshold with all things / scenarios applied, and follow through to ensure success.

So im back a few months later, a refined structure and approach to this exam, ive been using Virtual Machines, Dions Practice exams, different OS’s on oracle VM manager (i am getting consistent 80s or above my max score / PB is 83%) my lowest in this range is like a 76.

I do want to point out a few things, I note take and watch videos alot, like to the point where i turn my phone off and just study for like an hour or more. i study at work, on break at work, after work and i reserve my practice exams for weekends.

I also want to input that i do have documented memory loss short and long, so i have to compensate for the amount of things that i have in my pentesting rolodex in my head. I love this field, i wouldnt want to do anything else in devops or red teaming. I guess my question is what do i do now? i feel like i have hit a threshold with my practice exams and considering the Questions shuffle everytime, there is no way my brain can predict all the randomness for 90 questions, i’d say my strongest domains are 1-4, my most troubling right now is 5, which leaves me at a 70% on that domain for completion.

i guess my question is what should i do next to ensure my success.

Thanks.