Passed Security+ 10.27

gncsmith

I passed Security+ today with an 833. Not as high as I'd hoped but it's still a 92.5%, which is what I was averaging on the practice exams.

Study Materials

CompTIA Security+: Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-401 Study Guide by Darril Gibson
Link:[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] http://amzn.com/1939136024[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Recommendation: Highly[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]This book is concise and really should be all you need to pass, however, I like to have multiple sources for studying as I am a visual learner for some concepts. I can read the material, take notes on it and remember it but to understand it, I sometimes need visual examples. Not sure if Darril has any videos to compliment the book as I only visited his site once for simulation examples. If he did include some on his, he'd "hands down" have the "lock" as the "go to" source for this exam.[/FONT]

PluralSight Security+ Course by Christopher Rees
Link: http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/comptia-security-plus-sy0-401-network-security
Recommendation: Good, above average
This course is mainly a set of slides with the instructor narrating, however, there are times animations are used. Each subject is concise, and there are no long, drawn, out stories or distractions I've seen in other videos by other providers. I like this a lot.

Professor Messer's Security+ Study Notes by James Messer
Link: http://www.professormesser.com/sy0-401-course-notes/
Recommendation: Above average
The notes are good (quite a few pages), and are sufficient, however, there are a couple of references that are a little confusing. Great for building your own notes though and I am very appreciatively Professor Messer offers the courses online for free.

Takeaways

First, this is a nice introduction, and foundation to IT security. The exam I got was 79 multiple choice questions with 7 simulations at the beginning of the exam. Without getting into specifics, there were about 8 questions that were a bit confusing as to what was being asked and the possible answers didn't provide much to help.

All in all, this was a MUCH better exam than the Network+ exam I took back in August. Hopefully this will continue to improve.

I'm glad I took this and look forward to my next certification.

fuz1on

Congrats! Great score! Anything planned for your next one?

Edit: NP! ITIL is pretty straight-forward if you've been in an enterprise so a week should be more than enough time. Good luck on SSCP and beyond!

gncsmith

Thanks fuz1on!
My next cert that I'm studying for is SSCP and ITIL. Just read the first couple of chapters last night in the ITIL Foundation book and its more of a review for me it seems, so I believe I'll be able to take the exam in the next week or so.

SSCP also feels like a review (only 1 chapter read) so far, but with 120 questions and from what I've read, it will get more in depth as I read on.

After SSCP, I'm not sure yet. I think I'll head to more technical areas of study.

Tongy

Congratulations, good score!

danny069

Congrats on the pass! Great cert to have!

Dakinggamer87

Congrats!!

Good luck on your future certs