Passed with 840

nethersdenizen

Passed Linux+ today with an 840 out of 900, 655 is passing. I used the red exam cram book which doesn't cost much. I went to a different testing center because the one I always go to didn't offer it. The new place was much nicer but was a private school and tried to get me to sign up for classes and to drop out of college and that just certifications were more import than a degree. Told them I would think about it. Another strange thing too is that they photo copied my ID's including my credit card and I said that was no good and took the copy back in blacked out my numbers.

Ok about the test. It was easy, much easier than the practice test in the back of my book. Almost all the questions were one or two liners with just one choice A B C or D. Some of the questions sound hard when read but a lot of the choices are down right comical. Some questions were hard but they should be if this certification means anything. There were a number of generic hardware and network questions but nothing harder than what might be on the A+ or Network+ tests. It's 94 questions long which means you can get about 25? wrong maybe or about that I'm not very good at math.

When I was done an assistant handed me my report and I left. But this guy came running out to my car and said he forgot to give me this booklet of information about taking classes there and that I was wasting my time at college saying employers don't care about degrees or experiance just certs. I think that is a bunch of nonsence, companys want well rounded people who have taken math english and classes that teacher you to deal with people. Maybe I'm wrong, what do you think? I'm going to go there for their new computers, clean room, optical mice, and big monitors but will have to repell all the attempts to sell classes to me which cost many times more than the tests do($2000+ per course).

Good luck to all of you planning on taking this, you shouldn't need it.

Webmaster

Congrats with your pass and thanks for the feedback.

"A good product sells itself"... sounds fishy, him running after you...

Certifications are never more important than degrees, they go great together. To get the best jobs you typically need a degree, certifications and experience... one is not more important than the other.

I choose the skip college and go straight for the experience and the certs, at that time (9 years ago) that was certainly the right choice, but if I would have to start over now, I would definitely get a degree. Back then, after I had taken about 10 exams, earned a couple of certs, I had colleagues that earned more with 'just' MCP because the had a degree...

It depends on the company, some do only look at certs, but dropping out to get certs doesn't seem like a smart move these days.

Any plans for other exams?

nethersdenizen

For exams I plan to take I-net+ soon, very soon. I got my book but haven't read it yet. I took a practice test before I start to study and got a 78% so I think I could pass it without study but will put a week or two into it. These CompTIA exams are easy additions to the resume, I didn't know anything about certifications until recently and playing catch up. Since June I have gotten my Security+ Network+ and now Linux+ I did make an attemp at CCNA but didn't cut the mustard by 40 points but will study that a lot more and take it in the spring after I take my routing class at school where they have a router to practice with. After I-net+ I will take A+ just to get that silly thing out of the way but want to take the standard version so might wait until I can be sure every test is switched back to non adaptive. Maybe IT projects+ after that BUT no more Comptia 6 of their certifications is enough. Will go for CCNA and CCNP if I have the stuff also want to look into Linux certified professional (LPI) certifications because these are less tests than the SAIR/GNU certs and on the same difficulty level. There is RHCE too but that test might be too tough for me to try anytime soon but maybe next year, I don't care for RedHat and might not want their certification. I don't plan to get any Microsoft right now but maybe if my plan to work with just Unix like systems and networks doesn't work out I can become a MCSE administrator but that seems kind of boring and MCSE people are very common. Companies can save a lot of money using open source software but less people know how to set it up correctly so that's where I come in and maybe make extra money because they will save so much not buying Microsoft lisences. Don't get me wrong I'm not a Linux toating anti microsoft wirdo, I think Microsoft makes a great easy to use stable products which I use at work and home infact Linux is my least favorite Unix clone but it's what's hip and happening in the industry it seems.

Thanks for this site, it's the best 3rd party site for information. And Hopefully you can get your book published because I would get a copy for my reference collection.

curio

Nice one on your Linux+ and feedback. Don't pay tons of cash for those training courses you have already proved you don't need to. There are certain things that nix's don't do and Windows Servers do that means you probably are going to want some MS qualifications sooner or later. No really the ADSI stuff with interlinked domains and all that persistent access rights really is cool and has no equal in nix or netware, even group policies and assigned software packages are pretty good ideas in a totalitarian control freak type way. Good luck.

RussS

Congrats dood. Sounds like a rather shonky place if they are making those claims.
Excellent feedback on the exam though

tw77

Congradulations, thats a respectable score. My question might be did you have a lot of prior expierence with linux? I have the red cram book as well. Did you use alot of other sources? How much time did you put into that book? Thanks.

Ghent

Congratz.