Cramming and likelihood to pass CySA+?

DrSol

Hey, good evening.

Cyber security analyst here with about 3 years of experience performing vulnerability management and incident response for the military. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I ended up in a position where if I wanted to have them pay for the CYSA+ test for me, I would have to take it tomorrow (on Friday); I had reviewed some of the material and I believed it was something I could pass with little preparation and why not. I had been quite busy all day and honestly procrastinated. Now I'm having second thoughts and doubts. If I were to pull an all nighter and reapeatedly take the practice test provided udemy (or whatever alternative you recommend) for 9 hours straight, what would you say is my likelihood to pass? How hard is the test anyways? Have any tips on how to make the most of what little time I have left? Or would you say it's pointless, that it's actually a really difficult exam and there's no way in hell cramming for a measley one night could actually make in impact? On a scale of 1-10, how screwed would you say I am (haha)?   

Additional info you're likely to ask about (backstory / unnecessary read if you don't care to). Yes I'm irresponsible. No, I don't have a ton of certs aside from Sec+. I've been putting it off thinking I had until the end of my contract and that isn't the case, I found out I had until 6 months out from the end of my contract to have certs paid for and could only get a vouchers one at a time, as in I have to finish a test for one before I can put in for another. Long story short, the 6 month mark will fall on this weekend; I'd have to have my request in for the voucher by close of business tomorrow (Friday), and then that voucher would be good for 2 months. At first I thought I'd only have time to put in for one cert and I was gonna just do GCIH, but I realized that if I squeezed in an additional exam tomorrow morning and submitted the results before the end of the day I could still get another cert on my resume. With such little time left, in my head it was between CEH and CySA+ for which ones would both actually benefit me and be something I could pass without preparing much for. I ended up settling on CySA+ and was able to pull some strings to make all of this possible. So yeah, now I have about 9 hours to prepare for the exam and I'm in a slight panic. 

If you chose to take the time to read all of this and lend your advice/opinion, I appreciate your time and consideration.

Thanks,
Dan

Edit1: this is for the CS0-001 exam, not the beta.

JDMurray

Studying for every cert exam beings with what you already know about the exam objectives. Having hands-on work in a SOC/IR environment and a Security+ is a very good baseline of the CySA+ objectives. Depending on what your duties in the SOC were, you will see some or many very familiar topics and scenarios on the exam. You are also lucky in that there is a lot of CySA+ info out there--including all the older materials for the "CSA" certification (the previous name of the CySA+). Only you can determine what you already know about the CySA+ objectives.

I would say one-day cramming for CySA+ would involve watching/listening to training videos at 1.3x speed while thumbing through printed materials. You don't have much time to learn from taking practice exams. How good is your short-term memory is also a factor.

What happens if you take the CySA+ exam and fail? Does that mean you end up paying for the exam yourself? If not, then you have nothing to loose by taking it.

Ertaz

I took and passed the beta by just looking at the template. Just look at that blue print and ask yourself, "Do I know this?" If you do, then you stand a good chance of passing. The new version of the test will be announced this spring, ( I just got done with the cut score workshop for it). 

yoba222

I'd say unlikely that your military cyber security experience has completely covered the breadth of what's on the CySA+. From my experience in DoD, security services can be inherently partitioned from each other, e.g. one team to detect a security event and then another to analyze it. Just the nature of the game. So even if you've gained experience on one team, you probably haven't touched the sets of tools and services that the other four or five teams use. Please prove my theory wrong and pass this exam today.

DrSol

Just a follow up, I managed to pass it with an 830. I guess I was worrying for nothing. Next up is GCIA and then after that, who knows what. I really wanna transition more toward IR when I get out and will likely make another thread down the road, looking for guidance from you guys. Thanks all for the responses. Mods, feel free to close the thread if you'd like.

@JDMurray if I would have failed it, I wouldn't have lost much. Just would have had to pay out of pocket to retake it if I wanted to or ended up needing it.

Ertaz

DrSol said:

Just a follow up, I managed to pass it with an 830. I guess I was worrying for nothing. Next up is GCIA and then after that, who knows what. I really wanna transition more toward IR when I get out and will likely make another thread down the road, looking for guidance from you guys. Thanks all for the responses. Mods, feel free to close the thread if you'd like.

@JDMurray if I would have failed it, I wouldn't have lost much. Just would have had to pay out of pocket to retake it if I wanted to or ended up needing it.

Congrats!  Good luck on the GCIA.

battlemike

@DrSol what did you use to study? I failed it...just now, a 730 when I needed that 750.  Some of the scenarios messed me up