The Security+ experience

I passed the Sec+ today with a score of 819 and wanted to give you would be test takers a quick summary of my experience.

I think the best advice that I could give is dont psyche yourself out before taking the test. All I did last night was go to any security+ forum I could find and read posts of people who had failed the test in an attempt to not repeat thier mistakes. That in itself was a mistake because I started having some minor confidence issues which is very uncharacteristic of me. If this happens to you the best thing to do in my opinion is to stop studying. This is because if you start doubting yourself even when you know you are prepared, you begin to study redundant information or nitpick at irrelevent subjects that isn't going to help you but just stress you out more. Instead do something that brings you confidence. In my case I hopped on Xbox live for a game of Madden and ran the score up on some newbie Belichick style. Just remember the hardest part about this test isnt really the material in my opinion it's just the higher than normal passing park that is required.

That being said one thing that kind of caught me off guard were the questions regarding specific tools. So make sure you know your tools regarding port scanning, what rootkits are, vulnerability scanning, war driving, backdoor, and any others.

Confidence in your capability is your greatest weapon

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

sthomas

Congrats on the pass!

dynamik

Congratulations. The Security+ is my favorite certification thus far. What's next?

illmatic3285

I think I'm done with Comptia for the foreseeable future. Probably gonna start the MCSA path so I guess 270.

janmike

Congratulations for passing Security+!

Good luck with the Microsoft exams.

msnelgrove

Congrats!

Megadeth4168

Congrats!

amidamaru

Congratulations mate...the M$ exams are less difficult than this one so you can stay relax.

aaronj

illmatic3285 wrote:

I passed the Sec+ today with a score of 819 and wanted to give you would be test takers a quick summary of my experience.

I think the best advice that I could give is dont psyche yourself out before taking the test. All I did last night was go to any security+ forum I could find and read posts of people who had failed the test in an attempt to not repeat thier mistakes. That in itself was a mistake because I started having some minor confidence issues which is very uncharacteristic of me. If this happens to you the best thing to do in my opinion is to stop studying. This is because if you start doubting yourself even when you know you are prepared, you begin to study redundant information or nitpick at irrelevent subjects that isn't going to help you but just stress you out more. Instead do something that brings you confidence. In my case I hopped on Xbox live for a game of Madden and ran the score up on some newbie Belichick style. Just remember the hardest part about this test isnt really the material in my opinion it's just the higher than normal passing park that is required.

That being said one thing that kind of caught me off guard were the questions regarding specific tools. So make sure you know your tools regarding port scanning, what rootkits are, vulnerability scanning, war driving, backdoor, and any others.

Confidence in your capability is your greatest weapon

What you just said is so true, I just took and passed my Network+ exam yesterday. The night before I did the same exact thing and I started doubting myself even though I was getting high grades on all the practice exams I was doing. I ended up passing the test pretty comfortably. Never read negative posts and like what the above poster stated, if you start to freak out just drop your study material and play a game or watch some TV.