Back in the Game with a pass

Hey All,

I sat for the SY0-401 Yesterday and passed with an 805/900. I've been working towards this for about the last year or so off and on, with only the last 2-3 months of serious study and two reschedules. I wasn't expecting pass, developed major cold the night before so I couldn't reschedule the exam, I was still feeling very weak across the board even tough I was ok on most of the practice material. I have to say those simulation questions will throw you off your game at the very start.

Darril is right when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of your network in order to secure it. When I first saw subnetting, I was like oh heck not this again, but walking away from the exam I can say I was expecting it to be way worse from what everyone else was saying on the board. I go so far as to say being able to understand the networking points well enough to recognize when they are used in different situations could be helpful.

Encryption/Cryptography has been a weak area for me in general and this test reminded me all too well.

Materials:
Gibson's Get Certified Get ahead, SY0-301 Study Guide
Cbtnuggets
Exam Cram SY0-401
RTFM, Red Team Field Manual (Port & Subnetting quick reference)
Get Certified Get Ahead Premium (Semi-Helpful reference for the simulations)

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Comments

c0mptia

Congrat on your passing the exam...

cyberguypr

Congrats!

tmcg

Congrats! Working on it myself at the moment hoping to sit in 8 weeks. Hopefully I can find something decent to practice sims. Any advice?

greg9891

Congrats dude excellent job

studying for mines as well.

Studying: Security +
Upcoming: VCA-DCV, A+,MCSA SERVER 2012, ITIL FOUNDATIONS

Congrats!!

Congratulations!

Nice Job!

Great job...studying for mine...taking early next month....I am using Gibson SY0-401 instead of the 301 is that a good way to go or have both?

evoxdc

Ok, I'm up and thinking a little more clearly. Still coughing my brains out but I don't need to use them fully until I plan to go back to work

Soooooooo, thanks to those that commented and to those that only read it to further their own quests. I really have to say I'm thankful for everyone here on the board who posted about their struggles which made me take this a little more seriously. I hope anything said in this thread will help someone else going forward as those that came before it did for me.

tmcg wrote: »

Congrats! Working on it myself at the moment hoping to sit in 8 weeks. Hopefully I can find something decent to practice sims. Any advice?

Main thing I would say is take your time with the simulation and read into what the question is asking for at the time. Due to my head pounding every ten seconds it was a real struggle for me to that much. {too specific about exam content_ comment removed} I think the Gibson material does a pretty good job of helping you think along these lines.

gdorlexa wrote: »

Great job...studying for mine...taking early next month....I am using Gibson SY0-401 instead of the 301 is that a good way to go or have both?

Funny thing is, I probably would not recommend it if you were starting off fresh. Part of the reason I got the measure up book, beside practice questions based on the new exam, I was reading around the board and other places and wasn't sure if there was a large enough leap in the material to justify to myself buying the newer edition. First time I had read his material, it was same reason I stalled on getting access to the premium site up until about 3-days before the exam.

To sum that up, Don't do what Johnny Don't does.

Truthfully, I wasn't paying attention to the refresh cycle for the exam and purchased the older book not too long before the newer one was set to come out and I initially thought that based on my class material from security major plus a quick cram with the book would get me ready. Problem is I lost focus {removed comment about specific exam} but that is what this time is for now, to breathe a little and then casually go over where I think I made mistakes and do better than the day before.

DAVIS NGUYEN

Congrats!