What does it take to pass CompTIA’s Security+ exam? In this video, you’ll learn about the Security+ exam objectives, my study tips, strategies to use during the exam, and more!
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If you’re someone who’s planning to take the CompTIA SY0-501 Security Plus exam, then you probably already know that CompTIA is one of the best known names in IT certification. The Security Plus exam itself is a great place to start. It builds a nice foundation that you can use in almost every aspect of information technology. Many employers consider the Security Plus certification to be a good prerequisite for many of their open positions. And if you’re looking to get your foot in the door, this might be a good option for you.
The Security Plus exam is also one that covers a very large number of topics dealing with information technology and security. So if you’re someone who perhaps might not be looking for a job, but you’d like to expand your knowledge of information security, this is a great place to start. CompTIA has many different kinds of members, including manufacturers, vendors, end users of computing technologies, and they all take advantage of the ability to have vendor neutral certification.
We used to have certifications that were very focused on specific manufactures products and with CompTIA certifications, you now have a very broad vendor, neutral certification to rely on. CompTIA is an organization that is recognized around the world. And many of their certification exams are offered in many different languages. You’ll need to check the CompTIA website to determine if your language is offered in your geographical area.
If you’re watching this video, then you’re probably already interested in my Security Plus training course. This is one that I’ve created to cover every topic from the CompTIA Security Plus exam objectives. My name is James Messer, I have over 25 years of experience in information technology, ranging from supercomputer operations through systems engineering and finally into IT security. If you’re someone who is looking for certifications, then this might be a great place to start to get trained on everything you need to know for the Security Plus exam.
I’ve created this Security Plus course, to provide you with exactly what you need to pass the Security Plus exam. Each video is a series of topics that are self-contained. So you can watch as little or as much as you’d like in one sitting. You have a lot of choices for a video training, and I wanted to create a series of high quality videos that anyone could use to get their certifications. Our goal is to have a very strong foundation of technical professionals that can use this content to get a job or get a better job.
This entire Security Plus course is available for you to watch online for free. Every minute of every video is available, and you can watch any of them at your convenience by simply hopping online. There’s no registration. And I’m not hiding any videos behind a paywall. If you need an offline version of my courses, you can purchase one online, and I also have a series of course notes available. That’s something that you might need to go along with your studies. Everything that you need to find is available on my website at ProfessorMesser.com.
To earn your Security Plus certification, you need to take a single exam, it’s 90 minutes in length, and you could get up to 90 questions during the exam. You’re graded on a scale between 100 and 900 and of that scale, you need to get a 750 to pass your exam. There are six different domains in the Security Plus certification.
The first domain is threats, attacks, and vulnerabilities, and that consists of 21% of the exam materials. Domain number 2 is technologies and tools, that’s 22% of your exam. Domain 3 is architecture and design, that’s 15% of the exam.
Domain four is identity and access management, that’s 16% of the exam. Domain 5.0 is risk management, that’s 14% of the exam. And the last domain is cryptography and PKI, and that is 12% of the exam materials. If you’re prepping for the Security Plus exam, this is the bare minimum of what you’ll need.
First, you want to get the Security Plus exam objectives from the CompTIA website. They will tell you every topic that you need to know to be able to pass the exam. You might want to consider watching those videos. The entire course is available for you to watch online. Consider getting a good book, GTS Learning has a good book, but there are many out there for you to choose from. You might want to discuss some of the topics from the exam with other IT professionals. And I have a chat on my website that’s at the bottom of every page, you can jump into a chat room and ask questions of the people that are there.
And I always recommend that you get as much hands on as possible. You want to be able to use some of these skills to be able to implement them in the real world. And those are the things that you’ll be tested on during the exam. Before you schedule your exam, I have some tips for you. The first is to use those objectives that you downloaded from CompTIA as your checklist. That way you’ll know exactly which topics you’ve mastered and perhaps which ones you need to work on before scheduling your exam.
You might also want to stop by your local exam center and see their testing location. See if it matches the type of testing environment that would work best for you. And don’t forget about taking care of yourself, the day before the exam, make sure you get plenty of sleep, that you’re eating properly, that way you can walk into the exam and focus on the exam topics.
I also recommend that you plan to arrive a little bit early. They might be able to start the exam early, or you can spend that time sitting in the lobby and going through some last minute notes before walking into the exam room.
During the exam, you’d like to have the entire experience to be as positive as possible. So if you’re in an exam center where something is bothering you, there’s a lot of noise, perhaps the environment itself is not one that is conducive to taking an exam, make sure that you stop immediately and let the exam center know so that they can address the problem right away.
You also want to think about the time management during your exam. The first few questions that you get on the Security Plus exam are what CompTIA calls performance-based questions. These are not multiple choice questions, they’re a little more involved. So I recommend jumping over those questions, finishing all of the multiple choice, and then coming back to address the performance-based questions at the end.
Another strategy that you might want to consider is checkmarking the box at the top that says, mark, so that you can mark that question to review it later on during the exam. With the CompTIA exams, you’re able to jump to any question during the exam at any time. So one of the things I recommend is to get through all of the questions as quickly as possible and then go back to the beginning and begin reviewing all of the answers before submitting the exam.
Once you hit the Submit button, you’ll know immediately whether you passed or whether you didn’t pass. And in either case, make sure that you get the print out from the exam center. It will tell you what sections you might need to work on for next time, or it will tell you what the score was that you ended up getting on the final exam to pass. In either case, you have that piece of paper as a documentation that you were able to pass the exam, or it’s going to give you some tips on what you can work on when you come back to take the exam.
So now you’ve got a number of resources you can use to start working towards your Security Plus certification. You’ve got this entire training course that you can use to step through every topic from the exam objectives. You’ve got a real-time chat on every page of the Professor Messer website.
I provide live monthly study groups for Security Plus questions and answers. You can join us live, or you can watch any of the replays on my website. And my Security Plus course notes are also available on my website at ProfessorMesser.com. I wish you the best of luck with your studies and good luck with your Security Plus certification.