Journal logo

How I Passed Security+ in Two Weeks

A Procrastinator's Guide to Getting Certified

By Lauren AndersonPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
Like
CompTIA Security+ Logo

Just a note before I begin: This is not a sponsored post and using my advice does not guarantee that you will pass. However, this worked for me and I wanted to share my experience.

So my job requires its workers to have a Security+ certification and the cutoff for my company was the end of June. I did what any self-respecting young adult would do and bought the book five months early in January. I then proceeded to read one chapter, get bored and put the book away for the next five months. I meant to pull the book back out in May however, finals got really intense.

Soon enough, it was the first week of June and I still hadn’t gotten my certification. Knowing myself, I wasn’t going to buckle down and study unless I was forced to so I signed up for June 24th and started reading. Now onto my studying method that allowed me to pass.

I purchased the book Get Certified Get Ahead for Security+ at the recommendation of my coworker and started reading. Every time I came across a key term, I would write it down in my notebook and highlight the term. I set a goal of reading 1-2 chapters a day. Three days later, I had read the entire 11-chapter book.

After completing the book, I went back to my notes and took every term and definition and wrote them on index cards, color coding by chapter so that if I didn’t understand a few from a certain chapter, I knew to go back and read it again. There were a total of around 400 notecards. By the time this was done, I was seven days in and I had seven days to go. I then remembered that my coworker mentioned practicing the performance based questions and online quizzes that come with the book when you buy it (you can extend your subscription which is what I had to do for $40 because I didn't read the book when I first bought it).

I ran through each chapter’s notecards until I had narrowed it down to only five or six cards I couldn’t remember. After going through a chapter’s notecards, I would wait at least ten minutes and then take the online quiz that went with it. By the time I was scoring 90 percent or more each time, I had two days left. This is when I started working on the performance based questions. NOTE: I don’t recommend waiting until two days to do this. Start these on day seven instead of day 12.

The night before the exam, I ran through all of the notecards again with a friend who was also studying for security plus to see which cards I couldn’t remember. In the end, there were about 15 I couldn’t remember. In the morning, I woke up and focused on the 15 I couldn’t remember and drove to the testing center while repeating them.

When you take your test, you receive an erasable notepad so I just wrote down everything that I felt I would forget. The test did not take as long as the amount of time you are given. All I will say is that if you are not sure about an answer, mark it for review and come back to it so that you have more time to deliberate your answer at the end. At the end, I discovered that I passed and walked out with a smile on my face, hopefully my little bit of advice will enable you to do the same!

how to
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.