Passed! Thanks for the help

Hi All,

Just wanted to say thanks to all who have posted tips and comments on their exam experiences. I found it all very helpful in preparing for this exam.

So for all those still preparing, here's my take on things:

I used the

Sybex Book 2nd Edition: A good start for covering the exam objectives. I didn't read any other exam guides so can't offer comparisons. Don't use a single resource though! Get different views on the topics and objectives.

Preplogic AudioTraining Lectures and Questions: Again a reasonable overview of exam objectives in a handy audio format. Some quirks relating to audio quality and the narrator annoyed me but still a useful training aid that can be listened to on the move or in the background while you do something else. I got this in a cheap deal so keep an eye on their website and special offers.

TECHNotes For Security+: An excellent reasource. Probably the best quality training aid I looked at and didn't even have to pay for it. I advise reading these thourghly.

Practice Exams:
Some come with the Sybex book and are good for re-enforcing the the material but are basically rehashes of sentences from the particular chapter they cover. Good practice though.

The free exams on this site: Again, very useful. Particularily for memorising ports and services information. Learn these!

Free exams at this site: http://www.free-tests.com/comptia.shtml. Very useful and a realistic simulation.

That covers the specific resources I used. I also spent time researching individual items like particular attacks or processes on wikipedia. Especially if they came up in a practice question and I didn't know the answer.

My advice for the exam would be to learn your ports and services (It's sad to miss easy points because you don't know these) and read questions carefully. People complain that the questions are ambiguous but there were only two or three that were genuinely ambiguous, others appeared so at first glance but when I re-read the question and considered the context, the right answer became obvious.

Good Luck!