Security+ Test on May 19

I've been studying for the last two months, at least 3-4 hours per day six days a week. For whatever reason, these PrepLogic practice exams are kicking my butt. Is this normal? I've read Darril's book at least once, and I'm almost finished with it a second time. I scored a 73% on the CompTIA practice exam a few weeks ago. I just can't seem to get over some of these areas. Outside of a test, I can explain the concepts of cryptography within the book, but when I take a practice test, my world is ending. Any suggestions on other study methods or materials I should look at?

Thanks.

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Dr IT

Take down pointers where you feel you are weak

for Crypto stuff i had a tables with the various types of algorithms and their key size ( this should make you easy to revise )

As far i heard Darill Gibson's book should be good enough

All the best

certhelp

Jinuyr wrote: »

I've been studying for the last two months, at least 3-4 hours per day six days a week. For whatever reason, these PrepLogic practice exams are kicking my butt. Is this normal? I've read Darril's book at least once, and I'm almost finished with it a second time. I scored a 73% on the CompTIA practice exam a few weeks ago. I just can't seem to get over some of these areas. Outside of a test, I can explain the concepts of cryptography within the book, but when I take a practice test, my world is ending. Any suggestions on other study methods or materials I should look at?

The practice tests are usually harder. This is not specific to Security+. I posted a few free sample test links in this forum sometime back. Try those as well. If this is your first time taking these practice tests, 73% is not bad really.

Jinuyr

Excellent, thank you for the suggestions.

I have been studying these exams non-stop since I posted and my scores are slowly going up. I guess if I'm memorizing the questions and explanations of the answers I'm retaining the material...

I will write out the Protocols/Ports as well as create a Cryptographic table to help me study.

Thanks again.

Dakinggamer87

Good luck in studies!!

Glyphic83

I agree with certhelp that the practice tests are harder. I used Darril's book and passed last Monday with no trouble. Got 70% on CompTIA's practice questions, but 876 on the actual test.
If you're going through Darril's practice tests and doing well on them, and thoroughly reading why the answers you selected were incorrect on the questions you got wrong, I bet you'll be good.
Best of luck

Jinuyr

I'm scoring 91% on the PrepLogic simulated exams now... Still having trouble absorbing some of the items. Ugh...

I'm memorizing the materials questions to answers rather than understanding it. Very bad...

dovwollner

Jinuyr wrote: »

I've been studying for the last two months, at least 3-4 hours per day six days a week. For whatever reason, these PrepLogic practice exams are kicking my butt. Is this normal? I've read Darril's book at least once, and I'm almost finished with it a second time. I scored a 73% on the CompTIA practice exam a few weeks ago. I just can't seem to get over some of these areas. Outside of a test, I can explain the concepts of cryptography within the book, but when I take a practice test, my world is ending. Any suggestions on other study methods or materials I should look at?

Thanks.

I wouldn't put too much stock in some of the practice exams. I've been a tech for years but finally had to just get my A+. I knew i should ace it based on my knowledge. The practice tests from various sites got me nervous as I missed a bunch of answers. Took both tests today and got a 818/900, and 879/900, meaning on the second I may have missed only 2-3 out of 100. I'm certainly going to not worry as much for future exams based on practice tests.

tcasey

I took the exam today and passed (nice to have that behind me:)).

I only used Darril's book and carefully read through each page. In addition, I completed each chapter test without much issue. After the last chapter, I went back through the book at careful went over all the highlighted sections. Finally, I completed the exam in the back of book and scored well. A couple of days ago, I read over the chapter reviews to reinforce the focal points and then I completed the assessment at the start of the book as well as reviewed the exam questions in the back. In the end, you could ask me just about anything in the book, and I was good to go.

I blazed through the first 12 questions and rested on 13. My reluctance to know the exact answer caused me to flag the question. The same happen 4-5 questions later and again 3-4 questions later and again 2-3 questions later. Before I knew it, I was flagging every other question. By the time I reached 50, I thought I was in trouble for certain and began to wonder why the information in Darril's book did not match the exam. Don't get me wrong, the book provided a good foundation to roughly half of the answers, but I felt as if the rest of the answers had to come from my own experiences.

I wish the exam were based on a given book(s). Unfortunately, the Security+ cert is a multiple resource exam. You must fully understand the foundational topics within each chapter and leverage real world experiences. If you lack real world experiences, consider reading one or two additional books.

Since CompTIA has a huge bank of exam questions, it is very possible that some had easier questions compared to others (by easier I am referring to more mainstream questions). Nonetheless, be prepared and you will do fine:).

Jinuyr

I hope I luck out then and get the easy questions

My background is pretty diverse, but there were still a number of items and chapters that required me to go over it more than just a few times. I've been doing IT for about 10 years now but it's always been in large environments where most of the groundwork has already been laid out. My most recent experience is where a lot of this knowledge really came to me as I started out opening a hotel in the IT department. I just hope I can put it all together.

soooowutnow

tcasey wrote: »

I blazed through the first 12 questions and rested on 13. My reluctance to know the exact answer caused me to flag the question. The same happen 4-5 questions later and again 3-4 questions later and again 2-3 questions later. Before I knew it, I was flagging every other question. By the time I reached 50, I thought I was in trouble for certain and began to wonder why the information in Darril's book did not match the exam. Don't get me wrong, the book provided a good foundation to roughly half of the answers, but I felt as if the rest of the answers had to come from my own experiences.

I agree with this assessment 100%. I only used Darril's book and practice tests in the book to study but I felt like a lot of the questions on the actual exam were not covered in the book. I also felt like the book emphasized certain areas that were barely touched on or ignored in the exam. I think I flagged about 30 questions. It is a good thing I had plenty of time to go back and review. I ended up changing my answer on like 5 or 6 of them. I guess the bottom line is that I am certified now but I was sweating it!

soooowutnow

Jinuyr wrote: »

I hope I luck out then and get the easy questions

My background is pretty diverse, but there were still a number of items and chapters that required me to go over it more than just a few times. I've been doing IT for about 10 years now but it's always been in large environments where most of the groundwork has already been laid out. My most recent experience is where a lot of this knowledge really came to me as I started out opening a hotel in the IT department. I just hope I can put it all together.

One thing that helped me was that I made flash cards for all the crypto memorization stuff and for the ports. My wife sat with me for 2 hours going over everything the night before the exam and it really helped me memorize the different symmetric, asymmetric, and hash algorithms.

Jinuyr

Took the final exam on Darril's book and got an 89%.
Been doing the PrepLogic exams nonstop for almost a month and when I did simulation exam I got 800+ on the first three and missed the last set by 2 points.
Also rereading the book tonight as much as I can, which if I complete it would mean I have read it 2.5 times.

Ugh the stress of this is killing me...

soooowutnow

Jinuyr wrote: »

Took the final exam on Darril's book and got an 89%.
Been doing the PrepLogic exams nonstop for almost a month and when I did simulation exam I got 800+ on the first three and missed the last set by 2 points.
Also rereading the book tonight as much as I can, which if I complete it would mean I have read it 2.5 times.

Ugh the stress of this is killing me...

If you got 89% on Darrills book you should be good to go. I got like 85% on them and I passed.

Jinuyr

Finished! Got an 842 on the exam.

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and support. Now that the content is fresh and just behind me, I went a little overboard on studying and found a few items that were not very beneficial to my personal experience with the exam.

Darril's book was a great resource all around, it had good information, and great test questions.

PrepLogic's materials was hit and miss. The test questions were spot on, very much like the real exam and a lot of it helped me to understand how the actual exam was worded and how to prepare myself mentally for the subtle clues that may exist.

The Video Training was a bit of a bust, I watched it about twice and it did not have a lot of material that was related to the actual exam. This is the same for the Mega Guide (also done as Audio Training). I'm thinking that LabSims may be more of a value than this video course.

The CompTIA Security+ Deluxe Study Guide by Wiley Publishing was okay. It had a lot of great details about certain subjects related to the exam but was not something that was widely used.

My set of questions had a lot of Organizational Security questions, and a lot of questions regarding Malware. Everything else was very minimal. I had one question about ports and a few about encryption. The Organizational Security questions were very in depth going as far as situational questions regarding HVAC systems. I was stumped by this one and it was frequently mentioned in my results sheet.

Time to go tackle Sever+ And Microsoft Exams. Thanks again all! ^_^

instant000

Jinuyr wrote: »

Finished! Got an 842 on the exam.

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and support. Now that the content is fresh and just behind me, I went a little overboard on studying and found a few items that were not very beneficial to my personal experience with the exam.

Darril's book was a great resource all around, it had good information, and great test questions.

PrepLogic's materials was hit and miss. The test questions were spot on, very much like the real exam and a lot of it helped me to understand how the actual exam was worded and how to prepare myself mentally for the subtle clues that may exist.

The Video Training was a bit of a bust, I watched it about twice and it did not have a lot of material that was related to the actual exam. This is the same for the Mega Guide (also done as Audio Training). I'm thinking that LabSims may be more of a value than this video course.

The CompTIA Security+ Deluxe Study Guide by Wiley Publishing was okay. It had a lot of great details about certain subjects related to the exam but was not something that was widely used.

My set of questions had a lot of Organizational Security questions, and a lot of questions regarding Malware. Everything else was very minimal. I had one question about ports and a few about encryption. The Organizational Security questions were very in depth going as far as situational questions regarding HVAC systems. I was stumped by this one and it was frequently mentioned in my results sheet.

Time to go tackle Sever+ And Microsoft Exams. Thanks again all! ^_^

Congratulations!

Security+ is a solid certification. People don't give it enough credit.

Jinuyr

I agree, I've learned a lot and have applied even more to what I do now with the help of this certification. It's also a great stepping stone towards other security certifications.