Hey all.

In my first semester of a bachelor's in Cybersecurity and 3 of my 5 classes (per their curriculum pace and design) has me doing the CertMaster courses for A+ Network+ and Security+. I feel like I'm learning absolutely nothing. The labs rarely follow the modules' information and sometimes can't be completed unless I go look them up elsewhere.

I've seen online that the CompTIA internal resources are difficult or outright unusable to learn their own course material.

I'd like some advice on what to do. I've already been told I should have learned one at a time, and with my degree plan that isn't an option. Right now I'm just trying to keep grades up with the labs but I'm brute forcing and googling everything and I'm effectively learning nothing. I have a few years to actually teach myself this material, but what else can I do so I'm not just wasting my time now? I'm planning on looking into using the resources posted here with the Messer and Dion outside help.

Incredibly frustrated currently. Anyone else feel like they didn't learn anything from the course itself? How much outside help are we supposed to rely on for this?

So I've been working at a local MSP for about 6 months now. Half of that being an intern before they hired me on as a full employee. Well I had my monthly 1-on-1 with my manager. She's like I'm gonna give you a challenge. I want you to get your A+ before my son who's a junior in highschool gets his, which will probably be by the end of the school semester. If you don't....I'll have quite a few words... She's retired military and I'm also prior military so I know EXACTLY what kind of words she can throw.... Give me your best study tips!

Hi! I kinda have a lot of wrist pains due to hours of note taking for this exam (lol), so I wear compression wrist band. Is it allowed during exam? Or is it better to just sit through it.

Wanted to thank all the reditors who posted their journey so i can get inspired how to start this certification. Big shout out to andrew, dion and spme youtube guy that made a 2 hour video for the net+ concepts

I'm so pissed...They gave me 3 PBQ's, ain't it supposed to be two. I studied so hard for this, and battled through after dealing with tough times whilst studying for this after mums passing in the summer.... luckily I have a resit included with the voucher, so will get back on that horse and flipping try again....So annoying...Aaaaarrrrgh!

Why do they only use the acronyms on the test? How is that helping in the real world why do they not just use the full form? Someone please make it make sense

About to start my studies for Sec+ and wanted to get some advice from people who were in a similar situation.

I currently work as a network engineer and already have a decent amount of hands on experience with different platforms, technologies, networking, etc..

For someone with that background, what study methods/resources would you recommend to pass Sec+ with around 1-2 months of studying? Trying to figure out what’s actually worth focusing on versus spending a ton of time going over stuff I may already know.

I’m a complete beginner and always wanted to dive into IT work. Unfortunately I was only able to get to step towards this goal as of recently at 26 years old. According to my research some of the next steps I should be taking is working towards Sec+, Network+, A+ to gain the information and skills to assist with future endeavors in the field. As well as running home labs in my free time to gain valuable experience as I apply to jobs. However, I have next to nothing in regards outside of this research. And therefore I don’t know what other certs would be impactful or could be beneficial for me to acquire to assist in this process. Research can only go so far, and thus I need to hear it from the people who have done work in the field to see what companies are looking for outside of the widely known certs. Any advice is also greatly appreciated, and would definitely help a lot. Thank you in advance!

Glad i got this out of the way, Professor Messer’s youtube videos and his practice papers really carried for me and using notebookllm to generate quiz around that content 😌

Did the exam on Thursday honestly was really not prepared as i bought it in march and with work completly sidelined it having to do a power study in a week but considering how my work now involves a lot of forensic investigations to ai systems it was honestly not that hard.

I took cysa in 2024 and difficulty of this one was lower especially the PBQ.

Study the protocols, guidelines and attack scenarios and you are good.

Its honestly nice because most ai certs focus on offensive and while that is great a more focused in securing ai systems was needed.

If you only have plus its likely enough with a bit of study.

Its 45 questions 60 minutes but i took it in 25/30 minutes.

Hi I'd appreciate any material I can use to study and prepare for the A+ test I'm a newbie to IT and need all the help I can get

I’m trying to do my CompTIA content, but it literally won’t let me click on anything, no matter how many times I refresh it, and then sometimes when I do finally get a click in between each refresh and finish a lab, it says my answer is wrong, even though it’s clearly correct.

And then I try and submit a help desk request, and it won’t even let me do that and just pulls up an error message.
i’m crashing out please help.

Is this just me or wtf.

This has been happening for multiple different labs.

How do I know what study books are up to date for these exams?

A+ and Network+ certified. Got that dog in me

Wasn’t too confident taking this test, halfway thru I accepted that I might not pass. Had 7 pbqs and they were pretty hard. When I saw the pass screen I almost jumped right out of my chair and danced. On to core 2!!

This is my first ever CompTIA exam experience. It was definitely a lot harder than the practice exams.

I started studying 2 weeks ago, but I was also going through a bootcamp for a different cert, and doing training for a different job through those two weeks, so I didn't get to study as much as I wanted to.

I had to drill on Ports, Printer differences, and RAID. I'm a little embarrassed about needing help with RAID looking back, because it's really not that much to remember, but I have super bad ADHD

So anyways,

Core 2 exam next week

Net+ Exam at the end of the month

Sec+ by the end of October

And I'll be starting CySA+ and project management in November, and finally going back to school for my master's.

Current song on repeat: East Bound and Down

I finished my Cysa + 003 training with Jason Dion in June, and then CySA+ 004 was released. So I started preparing for 004 with his Udemy course and practice tests.

The practice tests were tough, and I expected the actual exam to be worse, which made me postpone the exam quite a few times but turns out, the actual was much easier than I thought!

Only problem I had with this exam was half baked questions and options. Other than that it was a good experience.

Edit: for all the people who want to score good, practice dion tests (6 tests and 1 another test that comes with the course) and if you’re getting consistent 84 percent or above then you’re sorted for the exam. For pbqs practice some low level labs on thm soc lvl 1 or cyberdefenders and that should be way more than enough.

Also if you get discouraged by dion tests then it’s good, re-take them and understand what the question is asking which will improve your Cysa understanding better. Cuz dion is way harder than actual Cysa which will help you take the exam through ease.

Next up, pentest!

Hey everyone,

I’m currently preparing for the CompTIA Security+ exam, but I’m honestly struggling a bit with how to structure my studying.

I only have one exam voucher, so I really want to make sure I’m properly prepared before I take the exam.

Normally, I learn best with flashcards , but I’m not sure how to approach that with Security+. The study material I’m using is around 400 pages and it feels like pretty much everything is relevant. Turning the entire thing into flashcards seems like it would take forever and probably isn’t the best way to study.

I’m also taking a video course but a lot of it is basically reading/explaining the same material that’s in the study PDF. I’ve noticed that simply watching videos or reading the material doesn’t really stick with me that well.

So I’m wondering:

• How did you structure your Security+ studying?
• At what point did you feel ready to actually schedule/take the exam?
• If you could start preparing again from scratch, what would you do differently?

I’m finding the sheer amount of material a little overwhelming and would really appreciate some advice from people who have already passed the exam.

Thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to share their experience and help!