I passed! My strategy

Just wanted to share my strategies and background for how I was able to pass the SEC+ exam. Month long lurker...

I have a technical background, and have been in IT for approximately 5 years. I took a 9 year hiatus from the IT world, and did some R&D engineering type work. I was promoted to a new job a month ago, and I'm back in the IT world. I work for the Army, and have been deemed IAT Level II, so they required me to get a SEC+ cert before I'm able to gain privileges on our domain.

Study Prep:
Darril Gibson's Security+ Get Certified Get Ahead SYO-301 Study Guide book from Amazon
Gibson's premium content on his website (used the 30 day access) - including flash cards and practice tests.
The blog on Gibson's website regarding user input on the amount and type of questions users had on their exam
Army Skillport training (required by my employer to obtain a voucher to take the exam)

Gibson's book was the perfect foundation. I think you'll do fine with just his resources. I found the wording of the questions on the actual exam a little more difficult/tricky than the practice questions. But I knew it would be like that coming into the exam. I used the advice of "read each question 2-3 times and ensure you know exactly what the question is asking." A single word in the question will dictate the correct answer.

I scored an 862. I had 74 questions, 8 of which were performance based. The performance based questions were very similar to what was described on Gibson's blog by users and his practice questions. I thought the performance based questions were easy, and much prefer that method of test taking. Do make sure you know what transmission protocols (TCP/UDP) are associated with each protocol when doing your ACLs.

Just wanted to thank this community for the advice and feedback you've provided, and Darril Gibson for the quality and complete study material.

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Comments

donw35

Congrats

shyguyIT

Congrats!

Dakinggamer87

Congrats on pass!!

Angelique0511

That's awesome, congrats! Did you use the 2011 version of Gibson's? Is that the most current material?

Congrats!

Congrats!

Congrats on the pass

Angelique0511 wrote: »

That's awesome, congrats! Did you use the 2011 version of Gibson's? Is that the most current material?

Yes. The 2011 version. The only thing on the 301 version of the test that's not in his book are the performance based questions. He's got sample versions of those on his website.