Passed Sec+ 401

mmcabe

I passed Security+ 401 the other day and wanted to pass along my thoughts, since I got so much good advice from this forum:

Study materials: Darril Gibson (book, premium online content, and phone app); Prof. Messer to fill in gaps; and Boson and MeasureUp practice exams, as well as the exams on Gibson and Messer's sites. Boson and MeasureUp are expensive and will raise questions that seem out of scope. However, the format is the closest to the real exam, and I did get a couple questions that I could answer only because of MeasureUp.

The test: Lots of vague and tricky questions. Basically the same format as Gibson, but take out pretty much any identifying info; e.g., a protocol will not be named--you need to identify it by its characteristics. I'm not just talking about easy ones in the chart like SSH and FTP. In addition, for most of the questions I remember, two answers were definitely right, and sometimes three or even four were right. So Gibson's elimination strategy is absolutely crucial to identify the "most right" answer.

The questions were also about twice as long and contained superfluous information as well as what you needed to know. Needless to say, this slows you down. I was flying through Gibson exams, but I finished the real exam with a minute to spare. (Fortunately, my PBQs were easy drag-and-drops.)

Hope this info helps anyone else trying to squeeze in this cert before the test expires.

Spiegel

Congrats mmcabe! What will you be attempting next?