Passed Sec +

Hey I passed the Sec + today with the score of 892. I was surprised when I saw that score. My results showed only three objectives wrong.

I used Darril Gibsons book, Transcender, And I took every term from each chapter of Darril's book and made flash cards.

I scored around 83-88% on Transcenders Test. I think transcender was harder than the actual exam.

I studied for a total of 2 months about 3-4 days a week, after my xbox 360 (RROD) and PS3 (YLOD) overheated and died on me.

One of the main things I did was narrow each question down to two answers and use logic. For example, If it ask you what monitors and prevent questionable network traffic. It cannot be a NIDS or HIDS because that only detects. So it has to be NIPS. Or if it ask, what detects questionable traffic to a local server. You throw out any answer dealing with network devices like like NIDS b/c it is asking about a local machine.

Hopefully, I not breaking any rules by saying this but I believe it will help people is they read every question fully and understand what they are asking for.

Also, please know the difference between the major encryption algorithms (AES, 3DES) and hashes (SHA and MD5). Know which ones are symmetric and which ones are asymmetric. Also, know which ones are used for encrypting, hashing, non-repudiation, mobile devices.

And last but not least, make sure when you are stuck at a answer Say to yourself, "think security".. It will clear up alot of answers. Most of the time you will come up with the best answer.

Thanks to this forum for introducing me to Darril's Book.

Darril, I live in Portsmouth, VA so I owe you dinner at the Cheescake Factory @ town center or Ruth's Chris. HAHA

My requirement's to the DOD is over and I can go back to my Solaris and Citrix training.

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Comments

ajmatson

Congrats on the pass

superman859

Awesome score. Congratulations.

burner27

Only 892? I am very disappointed in you. I think you're a slacker. Why didn't you get a 900?

Hehehhehehe. Just kidding. Great Score! I am using Darril's book, an Exam Cram book (for ...........I am not sure since Darril's book pretty much covers it all) and I have been using Visual CertExam Tests. Are these similar to the Transcender exams?

cbsharpe0824

Congratulations..

I am taking my test this saturday...

simtech

Congrats!

MrAgent

Congrats!

topper24501

burner27 wrote: »

Only 892? I am very disappointed in you. I think you're a slacker. Why didn't you get a 900?

Hehehhehehe. Just kidding. Great Score! I am using Darril's book, an Exam Cram book (for ...........I am not sure since Darril's book pretty much covers it all) and I have been using Visual CertExam Tests. Are these similar to the Transcender exams?

Burner: Darril's book will cover it all. I'm unsure about the CertExam questions. I was able to get my hands on a free Transcender voucher code and used that only for the last week and a half, mainly to get the format of the exam and see if I could apply my strategy or eliminating then selecting the best answer.

But the Transcender exam brought some new things that I didn't see in Darril's book. So I looked it up via google/Technotes but none of those were on the actual exam.

Personally, I believe that it is highly possible to pass with Darrils book alone. Just make sure you know the key terms of every exam objective. Like I said previously, I used Flashcards, it was time consuming to make but very well worth it. I would see the the terms in the multiple choice and easily eliminate the wrong ones b/c the question was about encryption but had SHA1 or MD5 as an answer.

If you have enough time before the exam get about 300 notecards and right the key term on one side and the key facts/definiton on the other. I broke my study cards into the domain , i.e., 1.0 System Security, 2.0 Network Infrastructure. 3.0 Access Controls, etc... I just studied a domain almost every night before I went to bed. I did it so much that I woke up in the the morning thinking about the Security + terms.

Thank you all for the congrats. Now I can't wait till November 8th @ midnight. I'm getting the New Xbox 360 and COD: Black Ops for my birthday..

erpadmin

The Transcenders are much harder than the actual exam. I didn't score higher than 82-85 percent on those. Darril's book hooked up the 97% on the real mccoy.

892 probably means you got litterally one wrong! (That's 99.1 percent) or part of 1 wrong. I'm curious to know what the score report said that you messed up on.

Of course, congratulations!! Definitely a win for the good guys on that one!!

earweed

Congrats on the great score!

topper24501

erpadmin wrote: »

The Transcenders are much harder than the actual exam. I didn't score higher than 82-85 percent on those. Darril's book hooked up the 97% on the real mccoy.

892 probably means you got litterally one wrong! (That's 99.1 percent) or part of 1 wrong. I'm curious to know what the score report said that you messed up on.

Of course, congratulations!! Definitely a win for the good guys on that one!!

All: I apologize... My score was an 882.. not an 892 .. I knew I couldn't have been that smart or lucky... lol

erpadmin: The score report said that I incorrectly answered.

1.5 Implement Security Applications
1.3 Implement OS hardening practices and procedures to achieve worstation.
6.3 Differentiate between and execute appropriate incident response procedures.