Just passed 401 but somewhat disappointed about the low quality of the exam

So today I passed the 401 exam without too much trouble. Great.

While preparing for the exam I read "CompTIA® Security+™ Study Guide Sixth Edition" from Cybex and "Comptia Security+ Certification Practice Exams, second edition" along with "Comptia Security+ Certification Study Guide, second edition" from McGraw Hill.

All three books are great for preparing for the exam and I highly recommend doing the test questions in "Comptia Security+ Certification Practice Exams" over and over.

The exam is basically divided into two sections: multiple choice and simulation based questions. I got 66 questions in all.

The multiple choice section is fairly straight forward despite for the oddly worded question every now and then.

The simulation part is however nothing but terrible. The graphical layout is mildly put confusing, and knowing where and how to drag and drop elements requires a Ph.D. in illogical thinking. To make matters worse, the simulation description window somehow always end up on top of the elements you're trying to manipulate.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, one of the simulation questions failed to load. This lead to my exam being temporarily paused while the test centers tech support guy called Pearson VUE to sort things out (which they couldn't). About an hour later, and the simulation question still not being able to load properly despite locally re-installing java and flash, I decided to skip that question and move on. I obviously managed to score well enough on the remaining questions to pass the test anyway.

Long story short - I'm glad I passed but I'm surprised of the low quality of the simulation test and Pearson VUE inability to solve the issue I experienced.

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Comments

nachodba

Congrats on the pass.

I took the 301 but I agree, there are issues with the exams. My major gripe is not being able to go back to the simulations. While I didn't have a simulation that failed to load, I did have an issue with one of the simulations potentially having several correct options. I found a majority of the 301 questions to be a joke.

MSP-IT

Congrats on the pass.

Although I've never had an experience like that, I can honestly say that it doesn't get any better with exams from companies like Cisco or Microsoft. It's the world of certifications we live in. Let me be the first to officially welcome you.