First time pass. As usual, I figured I failed the test, but did pretty well considering. 70 questions, 6 of them were simulations. Some of the concepts were only covered in one of my resources, if at all. If I had to sum up the test, I would say that it focused very heavily on controls, which ones are BEST, and where and when they should be implemented. But, that was just my experience.
Here's what I used to study:
Sybex CompTIA Security+ Study Guide Sixth Edition Exam SY0-401
o Read and highlighted each chapter
o Answered review questions after each chapter, reviewed material for missed questions
o Sybex companion website tools
§ Assessment tests
§ Chapter tests (same as the book chapter tests)
§ Flashcards
§ 2 practice exams
o Worthless. Don’t waste time or money on this. Get a better textbook.
CompTIA Official sample questions (30)
Cybrary.it CompTIA Security+ Training Course
o
https://www.cybrary.it/course/comptia-security-plus/
o Took notes for each of the subject matter areas
o Completed the course and tried to take the Identity and Access Management certification exam but failed pretty bad with 54%.
o Got a course completion certificate worth 9.5 hours CPE
o Worthwhile if you have the time. The instructor is kind of hard to understand at times
Techexams.net
Professormesser.com
Transcender
o Transcender is a little difficult to maneuver through, and is basically only a test engine. There are flash cards and a variety of tests to take. I only had access for 30 days and used all of it, never achieving a passing score on any of the tests. Grades ranged from 67% to about 74%. The material covered on the tests is different from any of the other sources I used. Would have liked to have more time to go through the material, but moved on to other study methods.
o Transcender is good for hammering home (through repetition) the concepts.
Pearson IT Certification Complete Video Course by Michael J. Shannon.
o The material is somewhat dated (2014), but on the other hand he covers material not found in other resources
o Includes quizzes, matching, practice exams
o Shannon provides a lot of examples via demo systems and goes into quite a bit of detail in these examples. At first I thought it was a waste of time, but after taking the exam I realized that his demonstrations were invaluable in understanding the concepts.
