HOW I PASSED THE SY0-601 SEC+ EXAM ON MY FIRST TRY

Materials used to accomplish this:

Professor Messer’s SY0-601 Sec+ Course

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG49S3nxzAnkL2ulFS3132mOVKuzzBxA8

Professor Messer’s SY0-601 Sec+ Course Index

https://www.professormesser.com/security-plus/sy0-601/sy0-601-video/sy0-601-comptia-security-plus-course/

Total Seminars Testing Platform

https://www.totalsem.com/store/total-tester-comptia-security-practice-tests-exam-sy0-501-and-sy0-601/

For this plan to work, we need to understand the exam and how its built.

Domains___________________________Percentage_________ # of Questions

Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities ???????? ???24%???????????????????????????22 Questions

Architecture and Design???????????????????????????????????21%:?????????????????????????19 Questions

Implementation?????????????????????? ??????????????????????? 25% ?????????????????????? ?23 Questions

Operations and Incident Response?????????????????? 16%:?????????????????????????14 Questions

Governance, Risk, and Compliance?????????????????14%:?????????????????????????13 Questions

Each domain will have 13-23 questions covering its respective material. Give or take considering the 3-5 performance-based questions at the beginning.

For me to stay on track with Professor Messer’s SY0-601 Sec+ course, I needed structure and discipline. Ultimately, I needed a schedule. Having a 10-year-old daughter and a GF who loves to hang out, the schedule was one of many keys to success in completing this mission. I quit my job at the end of June with funds to hold me over until October. It was vital to make sure I obtained this certification before then. Also, I needed time to try and find work after obtaining the cert. So, I decided to accomplish this no later than September 7th.

Professor Messer’s SY0-601 Sec+ Course contains 177 spectacular videos that really break down the material in the clearest way possible. Considering I started studying July 1 and needed that cert by September 7th, I had approximately 2 months to study, or 60 days. I divided the number of videos by the number of days I had which gave me about 3 videos a day minimum, to get through the course by September 7th. Of course, I completed more videos. Some were 3 minutes long and others were 17 minutes long, but 3 was the minimum I had to complete per day.?

Total Seminar is a platform that offers unlimited attempts at practice exams. This application is amazing, and I really enjoyed using it. It allowed me to tailor the exams to specific material, which I’ll cover soon. Also, it provided instant feedback, which is extremely important. They also had a simulated environment where the exam was live, or the assisted version where after every question you can check if you were correct. Total Tester allowed me to read the description on each choice offered. This was extremely important in my success with the certification.

So how did I retain all that knowledge the professor was dropping in each video? Well, for one, I didn’t retain everything. ITS A LOT OF INFORMATION. But I also didn’t just sit there and listen to him go on and on about HSMs, load balancers, and key pairs. I opened Word to take notes. Every video was very specific and whatever he defined, explained, and stressed, I transferred it over to Word in my own words so I can retain what I was writing. I used a Term-definition format to structure the information. If there was anything he explained that I still couldn’t understand, I GTSed it (Googled That Shit). This was the formula I used for the course to help me understand and retain the material.

How did I know I was retaining the information though? This is where Total Tester steps in. Professor Messer has a course index available on his site that shows all videos in order, what material they cover and to what domain they belong to! I’ll leave that link at the top as well. With this information, I was able to segment my training in a strategic way. I watched the videos and took notes up until “Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities,” the first domain, was covered, which was 59 videos. It was time to see if I really knew anything.

When it came to testing the knowledge, I created some vicious standards for myself. Firstly, Total Tester considers an 85% or higher as passing. That’s high to begin with. When it came down to the exam formatting, I would have the exam specifically cover that domain I was testing the knowledge on. Remember that the original exam will cover a max of 23 questions, if that, per domain. On my exams, I would put 60 questions regarding the specific domain, and then 30 minutes to complete the exam. That’s more than double the questions in only a third of the time allotted for the real exam. The first couple of exams I would use the assist to receive immediate feed back on my thought process and choices. When I finally felt comfortable with the domain, I tested myself and went live with no assistance. I told myself I would need to pass this domain practice exam 5 times, consecutively to proceed to the next domain. This means, if I knock out the first 4 exams and fail the last practice exam, guess who starts from exam 1 again? This guy! Like I mentioned before, passing is considered 85% or higher. At the end of each exam, you can review what you got wrong. I would write the specific subject down that I got wrong to review in depth later using google. After passing all 5 exams consecutively, I was ready to move on to the next domain. Rinse and repeat for every domain. (Every now and again I would take a practice exam on previous domains just to make sure I’m remembering things.)

I have studied all 5 domains and finished the course, now what? Things are getting serious now. At this point I’m considering myself a worthy opponent for the SY0-601. Its time to go live with the simulated Sec+ exam, meaning 90 questions in 90 minutes covering all 5 domains. This was it. Just like the domains, I needed to pass this exam 5 times consecutively. Though, there was a catch with this one. One of the scores had to be above 90%. If I couldn’t land 90% on at least 1 exam, I would have to start over. If I managed to succeed, I would go straight to CompTIA, no if’s, ands, buts, or doubts, and I would buy the voucher and set the exam appointment to make this official. And that’s what I did.

Some extra things I did that helped me: A mentor of mine mentioned to not skip out on the last domain. See, many people consider it common sense because its about rules and regulations, but these are policies and procedures we need to know. And there isn’t any way to break the term down that will help you figure out what the policy covers. It comes down to just knowing it.

KNOW YOUR COMMON PORTS AND SERVICES. Can’t stress this enough. There are questions on the exam that will ask you what port should remain open, and which should be closed to perform a service.

Lastly, know your acronyms and what they cover and what they are used for. This probably helped me the most on the exam. I was able to use the process of elimination to remove answers that I knew had nothing to do with the question.

That’s all folks!

I really hope this helps anyone who wants to succeed and finally obtain the Sec+ certification!

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