Passed on Friday
VikingWarlord
Member Posts: 27 ■■■□□□□□□□
in Security+
Background: I've been in IT for a little over a decade have A+ and Net+ I earned in June and July of 2009, respectively. Haven't taken any exam since. Passed with an 841 and here's my experience.
For sources, I used Kindle versions of both Gibson books and got a month of access to gcgapremium.com. I also used CBTNuggets through the subscription my company has and Professor Messer videos and notes.
The Gibson material was the most helpful by far and was my main source. The other two were to fill in either things I didn't understand or what I felt were gaps in the material. My strategy was to read a chapter first, then go back and read it again while taking notes. I also followed his exam prep advice. Don't just take the practice tests over and over and over or you're going to end up just memorizing those questions, which won't help you. Take the readiness test a couple times only. Understanding why the wrong answers are wrong is just as important as knowing the right answer.
CBT Nuggets had some good material (cryptography and PKI, especially) but I can't stand Keith Barker's presentation with trying to sound really happy all the time and pretending to laugh at...jokes? I don't know.
The Transcender and Kaplan practice tests CBT Nuggets uses were worthless. It's almost as if they took questions from other practice tests that were vaguely security related and compiled them together. Half of them weren't related to the blueprint at all and asked about specific Windows and Linux functions.
Professor Messer's material would have made a better backup. I did buy the notes but didn't find them to be too useful just because they mirrored the notes I'd already taken on my own.
The exam itself was on the difficult side and the first few questions definitely knocked my confidence down a bit. If there's a question you don't know, put something down and then flag it for review. Often, you'll find another question later that would spark your memory and you can go back to it. It's a real strength of this particular testing engine.
If you really know your stuff going in, you'll have plenty of time. For me, it was 1:01 from sign in to sign out. Good luck to whoever's doing it next!
For sources, I used Kindle versions of both Gibson books and got a month of access to gcgapremium.com. I also used CBTNuggets through the subscription my company has and Professor Messer videos and notes.
The Gibson material was the most helpful by far and was my main source. The other two were to fill in either things I didn't understand or what I felt were gaps in the material. My strategy was to read a chapter first, then go back and read it again while taking notes. I also followed his exam prep advice. Don't just take the practice tests over and over and over or you're going to end up just memorizing those questions, which won't help you. Take the readiness test a couple times only. Understanding why the wrong answers are wrong is just as important as knowing the right answer.
CBT Nuggets had some good material (cryptography and PKI, especially) but I can't stand Keith Barker's presentation with trying to sound really happy all the time and pretending to laugh at...jokes? I don't know.
The Transcender and Kaplan practice tests CBT Nuggets uses were worthless. It's almost as if they took questions from other practice tests that were vaguely security related and compiled them together. Half of them weren't related to the blueprint at all and asked about specific Windows and Linux functions.
Professor Messer's material would have made a better backup. I did buy the notes but didn't find them to be too useful just because they mirrored the notes I'd already taken on my own.
The exam itself was on the difficult side and the first few questions definitely knocked my confidence down a bit. If there's a question you don't know, put something down and then flag it for review. Often, you'll find another question later that would spark your memory and you can go back to it. It's a real strength of this particular testing engine.
If you really know your stuff going in, you'll have plenty of time. For me, it was 1:01 from sign in to sign out. Good luck to whoever's doing it next!
