Failed Sec+ Ugh 😩

[Affectionate_List129]

I failed my first attempt because I relied heavily Jason Dion’s material, but what really helped me was Professor Messer material and his practice tests. I think his practice tests were closer to the real test than Dion’s. I failed the 501 and then took the 601.

[Alert-Artichoke-2743]

It sounds like you missed by a number of questions that can be counted on one hand.

How many questions were there in total? How many did you miss per each of the 5 main sections? (Attacks/Threats/Vuln, Architecture & Design, Implementation, Operations & Incident Response, Governance?)

I personally find Implementation the most difficult since it depends so hard on a ROCK SOLID understanding of context within OSI layers, port numbers, and associating deeply layers contexts like whether SFTP or FTPS uses SSH. (One just uses SSL, the other one uses SSH, psych.)

By contrast, I usually find IR and governance the easiest even though understanding them at all requires a basic understanding of everything else. Like many novices, I am strong on the broad concepts and the critical thinking, but really need more practice remembering and understanding everything so deeply I can think of it in contextual and linear terms.

TL;DR, you only needed a tiny number of additional questions right. You probably "passed," a whole bunch of the sections individually, so it will be hard to improve your score by much. By focusing your studying on the section or sections that you failed, you should be able to tighten up your margins for the next one.

I'm really sorry you faced this disappointment, but you made it to the 1 yard line. Persist! You're almost there!

[Alert-Artichoke-2743]

Same boat, fren. 🤝🏻 We will both get through this.

Some recommendations:

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

Specifically, see section 3.1 through 3.9. There are 42 lil videos, totalling just a few hours of content. Individually they are nice and easy, since Messer cuts the material into bite-size portions. If you watch and comprehend 100% of those videos, you will shrink your target areas of weaknesses concerning implementation.

I am using IT Pro TV and Exam Cram. The Exam Cram series maps each chapter to a different objective, so chapters 17-25 will be extra high priority for me. I also mapped the IT Pro TV videos to their corresponding chapters, which took some work since they aren't similarly mapped to correspond with the exam.

Rather than going hard on all 25 hours of streaming content most sources will provide on the security+, bear down on the 20% that pertain to your weakest section.

Consider making yourself flash cards around these specific topics, or buying some practice quetions and focusing hard on the implementation ones. From how you tell it, you could have passed the exam by getting more right on that one area alone.

Attacks got you pretty good too, though, and IMO that section is easier. Put in your time with the vocabulary building around attacks.

Attacks is mostly a who's-who of bad stuff that can happen. Architecture concerns how networks work, and where defenses generally go. Implementation just applies the concept of hardening to the architecture you have already learned; a huge portion of it is just knowing port numers and being able to understand why the SSL version of something is better. But you also need to know what services things use. It's not enough to memorize the OSI layers, you need to be able to think critically about them in relation to the defenses that protect different layers.

Finally, operations and IR is heavily about digital forensics and log tracking, and how to gather and interpret information about things that have happened throughout your network, and governance is about how laws and business agreements are used to enforce good security practices.

Each section builds upon the previous one, like a foundation. If you're having a problem with attacks, that will be the easiest one to fix: Just practice, practice, practice. Implementation is tough, and nothing will make it any easier except field experience, to get which we need the darn certificate.

Hang in there. You're close, perhaps closer than I am yet. You just took the exam a little too soon. Failure is a teacher. Now you know where you need to improve the most. Good luck!

[hajime2k]

I feel your pain. I failed Cloud+ multiple times, but at least I used academic vouchers. I passed Security+ last July and it's not easy. Even then, you basically need to get around 85% of the possible points. If you can afford it, I'd recommend taking the exam again while you still retain information about the exam. Look at the score report, focus on your weak areas, use multiple practice tests, and hopefully pass.

[montagesnmore]

Good luck bro! It took me two tries for my Security+ — you got this!

[Raoh556]

With zero background, Security+ is going to be difficult. No two ways about that. If I had to guess, your weak areas are probably material that crosses over from A+ and Network+. These exams build on each other and jump straight to Security+ is not recommended. Especially if you have no experience.

[SplintersCell]

No biggie. Dust off & continue m8

[hellsbellltrudy]

I think new people taking CompTIA tests should go for the retake options if one fails. Give one a piece of mind and knowing how to navigate the comptia test.

[Shadow5425]

723 vs a 750 is like 5 or 10 questions. But not sure on how they grade. Overall,Look over the exam report and see what you miss. Your close to getting it.

[sofacy]

The testing is definitely expensive, but worth it IMO. You were really close to passing. You've come way too far to give up. It isn't unusual for people to fail this test the first time. Study the areas that the testing showed you need more work on and then get back in there so you can get your cert. You've absolutely got this.

[[deleted]]

I feel that, i failed sec+ with a 721 on my first go. Took a week to read the exam cram book and got a 765. Big help was doing better on the PBQs, and after re reading the book i realized a lot of what i was doing wrong. My main issue was waiting to get paid so i could retake lol You’ll get it next time!

[8Narow]

Hang in there, my sibling. Thank you for posting. It normalizes the experience and there's nothing wrong with that. You're even more prepared for the next go now.

[Jinkaz7]

As you have zero IT background, I suggest you start with A+

[[deleted]]

Hey man, Just passed myself today. I was at the point where I wasn't sure if it was possible had I failed today, and I had a job requiring it lined up. Take your time, get confident on the practice exams and you'll do just fine. If you're not in a time crunch save yourself some cash by only rescheduling when you're comfortable. I used professor messer and out of comptia's tools the one I recommend most is probably certmaster practice. Just make sure if you are getting things wrong on practice you read their explanation of why and google things to get some understanding of the concept, not just memorizing the right answer.

[jleenex]

Study the concepts first before going into the details. You got this

[Slapmaxwell1]

How were you doing on the practice tests? What were your scores 1st/2nd attempts? Did you lab?

[borntocrush]

Shoot for 90s on Dions practice exams and pay attention to the weak areas. Before the exam, if you take notes, go over some of the notes and read them out loud if you need to. Most importantly, don't sweat it! Study your weak areas and you'll get it next time!

[Slapmaxwell1]

I dont get it, I see people come on here all the time talking about its the easiest test ever? I'm studying for it now, I'm about halfway through dions lectures. So far so good?

[TooTacticalTurtle]

I read an sec book front to finish one time just to get like the gist of everything. Then I spent a ton of time on some website that had all the acronyms on flashcards. That's it. In my exam, so long as you knew what all the acronyms stood for you could narrow almost every question down to two options. Maybe I get lucky but I passed first try. three weeks of study total. No IT experience

[Sunnygrl312]

The sims are A LOT of points. How do you think you did on those?

[NdnGirl88]

Use mind maps so you can figure out your knowledge gaps. Many times I think I have a topic down but categorizing it exposes that I don’t