My turn to finally say it

PASSED!!!

First off, I always used to get sick of everyone posting "Passed" all over the boards, but now that I've passed my first exam, I understand how eager you all were to say it.

I didn't have the greatest score, only a 607, but atleast I passed my first exam on the first try. My study materials consisted only of the Technotes, they were an outstanding help (Johan, I have sent you a PM regarding this). The Technotes, mixed with a few years IT experience under my belt, and doing a little studying for CCNA got it done for me.

From reading other posts, I agree many of the tests questions seemed vague or broad, it's not as straight forward as the Practice Exams. Also, I think a lot of scenario questions were opinionated. As in: given a scenario, what would be your first step to troubleshooting? After you work on a network long enough, you know the common problems, so you start there. I don't believe in a standardized set of steps on troubleshooting, there's too many "what ifs" but it's CompTIA's test, so I guess they win that debate.

Also if anyone's interested in what's next, I've been reading over A+ I think I'll knock that out, hopefully sooner than later, then go for CCNA (something I've been putting off for far too long).

Thanks again to Johan, all the moderators and everyone else who's posts have helped me along the way.