My Advice on passing Security+

The Sec+ is the first exam that I took. To give you a little background, I had no IT experience before taking this exam, and I was able to pass on my first try. I will cover the materials that I used to study and pass the exam.

Now I will tell you that I was nervous on the exam day because I didn't know what to expect when taking the exam. The process is relatively simple, and the testing center was nice. When I was taking the exam, I felt like I was going to fail the entire time. It was a stressful 60 mins, and I was relieved that I passed. I can't go over the questions on the exam. However, I will tell you this, though; it's not just memorizing terms and then regurgitating the answers. You MUST study and UNDERSTAND the material.

My method of studying is to learn from multiple different media platforms. I used a book, videos, practice exams, and an app on my phone. I cover each one in a little more detail below. Before you start doing a deep dive into studying, read the book first. I just went through the book cover to cover. I do this to understand the exam's general concepts and get a feel for the terminology. Next, I reread the book, but this time, I watch Professor Messer's videos that correlate with the topic. Reading the material and having someone explain it to me gave me a better understanding of the material. Also, at the same time, I would google any terms that I didn't understand. For example, if I read FTP, and didn't know what it was, I would google it. After the second read-through of the book and watching the videos, you are ready for some practice exams.

The book comes with a CD, and it has practice exams on it. I would start here. If you are bombing these practice exams, you need to keep studying. If you pass them but are stuck in an area, then focus on that area to understand the subject. For example, if you scored low on the encryption portion, concentrate your studies there. If you are going well with these exams, move onto the Darril Gibson app and use it to practice. I need to tell you not to memorize the answers. It will not help you. Instead, if you get it right, know why it is the correct answer. If you get it wrong, understand why it is wrong. For example, there is a question about hashing, and the choices are MD5 and AES. You need to know that MD5 is a hashing algorithm, and AES is an encryption algorithm. Knowing that is far more valuable than remembering the answer to the hashing question is B. I hope that makes sense because you must understand the material.

Finally, you have scheduled the exam, and you are about 2 weeks out. This is when I would start using the Jason Dion Practice exams on Udemy. This will get you a solid grasp on the exam. If you do well on these exams, you should be ready for the real deal. That does not mean you will see the question from his practice exam on the test. What I mean is that you should feel confident that you understand the material and are ready to take the test.