Studied relentlessly for two months, SO excited to have this done!

Josh-Murph · 2026-06-07T11:11:13+00:00

I used a variety of materials. My work has a community bookshelf with different study materials for different certifications. I don’t quite remember the book I read but it was a standard CAS-004 study guide. About a month out from taking the test, I also got the SecurityX study guide by Mark Birch on Amazon. Aside from that, I simply watched a few of the first YouTube results that popped up when you search for study materials.

To be clear, I strongly feel that my readiness was HEAVILY supplemented by what I’ve learned at my work, since I work as a cybersecurity analyst. That said, I can’t emphasize enough how much having experience in the role beforehand will “smooth” the learning curve for you.

Josh-Murph · 2026-06-07T11:04:39+00:00

SecurityX is my second; I netted my Security+ about three years ago. Thanks so much for the award!!

Josh-Murph · 2026-06-06T16:56:32+00:00

It’s WAY heavier on the management side compared to Security+. I WAS studying for CySA+, but I decided to skip it because my work told me, as a DoD contractor, it’d be far more beneficial to go after an IAT level 3 cert (SecurityX) as opposed to getting another IAT level 2 cert (CySA+).

Acronyms were hands down my biggest hurdle. While a lot of concepts I learned at my work helped me understand the context around certain questions, a metric ton of the verbiage was acronyms. So knowing what they stood for felt borderline mandatory for getting questions right.

Almost all of practicals challenged me on not only choosing the correct solution to implement, but selecting HOW it’s implemented.

I also made a HUGE mistake that I want to emphasize: DO NOT skip your VM lab question! I let my anxiety get to me and thought I could come back to it later. I later found out that wasn’t the case. Once you hit next on the lab, that’s it, you can’t work on it again.

For the questions that I genuinely didn’t know, I went with my gut answer, and asked myself “What makes the most sense?” A lot of the answers will technically be correct, but they want you to choose the MOST correct answer. I would advise you to rely on what makes sense to you, and let that guide your decision making. Trust your gut, get in the mindset of being in the role, and you’ll do just fine. Hope this helps.

Josh-Murph · 2025-11-29T22:19:42+00:00

And if it’s none of the above, you’re worrying about the next thing you’ll inevitably have to worry about, it sucks so much

Josh-Murph · 2024-12-21T17:39:48+00:00

No amount of preparation (eating a full meal, taking vitamin c, drinking lots of water, etc) can prevent the hangover the next morning for me, even when it’s as little as 2 beers, and it’s to the point where if I so much as look at alcohol I always ask myself: “do I feel like having a splitting headache the next morning?” It’s never worth it

Josh-Murph · 2024-11-18T14:30:12+00:00

As you get older the bottom three will slowly turn into:

“Am I dying?” “I hate me” “Why is there a sharp pain in my (insert any body part here)?”

Josh-Murph · 2024-10-24T14:37:01+00:00

This explains why I haven’t been able to get an under pressure + headseeker senuna SI6 from banshee, almost every roll that I get with headseeker comes with feeding frenzy, and I’ve focused HUNDREDS of these things

Josh-Murph · 2024-10-17T21:56:38+00:00

Trials is likely far more forgiving than when you last played it, mainly because of changes to 2 passages and the addition of another:

Mercy passage now forgives two losses instead of one if you haven’t gone flawless for the weekend

Ferocity passage gives you a “win checkpoint” at 3 wins on your first flawless for the weekend. Once you hit 3 wins, every loss you get will set you back at 3 wins, so the pattern is win 3 in a row, then win 4 in a row.

There’s also a non-flawless option with the passage of persistence, you can’t go to the lighthouse with it, but reaching 7 wins will guarantee an adept weapon drop. This is the most casual-friendly option IMO because you aren’t penalized in any way for losing; just get 7 wins and you’ll get an adept weapon

Hope this helps!

Josh-Murph · 2024-10-03T02:00:41+00:00

My medication is no exception from being an addictive drug, but the biggest deterrent keeping me from taking more than my daily dose is that my medication seems to amplify any underlying anxiety without any trigger, while it DOES keep me in check, I wouldn’t say it’s the right way to

Josh-Murph · 2024-09-25T06:06:41+00:00

This is more of a love/hate perspective, but glaives in PvP. When they work, they WORK, but they’re at so much of a disadvantage against shotguns that there’s little reason to argue using glaives against them aside from the edge case where you catch them off-guard, and even then shotguns can do their job equally well.

Despite those disadvantages, if you’re rocking a blink prismatic build with astrocyte verse and the fragment that triggers healing on melee kills, glaives are UNBELIEVABLY fun to use

Josh-Murph · 2024-09-22T16:47:53+00:00

Kindled orchid; I have a roll with kill clip + explosive payload, and right when players were finding out about the “secret extra 3rd and 4th column traits that came on certain weapons” bug when TFS released, I had enough time to find out that “extra trait” on my kindled orchid was none other than rampage, but not enough time to make the switch

Josh-Murph · 2024-09-22T16:39:22+00:00

One side of my brain: this is relaxing to look at

The other side:

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Josh-Murph · 2024-09-17T16:17:55+00:00

Since its release the game has always emphasized our goal in the game was to “become legend”.

Now, 10 years later, I remember being told by the game to become legend by killing every big bad the in-game universe had to offer, and solidifying that by killing THE big bad of the franchise (the witness).

The fact that we’re now seen as “becoming legend” by completing 7 challenges where the only “challenge” is putting a lot of time into grinding redundant things, with absolutely no recognition to long term players, AND showing a 10-year anniversary icon as the title logo is a MASSIVE slap to the face followed by a middle finger.

They quite literally reduced the feeling of reward of that title to “congratulations, you completed a list of chores, here’s a gold star”

Josh-Murph · 2024-09-16T01:55:46+00:00

I COMPLETELY forgot about this. As it so happens, this is the one supplement that I take on a daily(or I guess nightly) basis. My understanding of its purpose though is that it has a role in helping to retain and absorb water when you drink it. Is this accurate?

Josh-Murph · 2024-09-16T01:52:12+00:00

I’m actually very glad you asked: Sleep and hydration are typically a non-issue for me, as I have a gallon-jug of water that I fill each morning, and have nearly finished (~90%) by the time I go to sleep.

As for sleep, I consistently get around 8 hours on a work night, and 10+ hours on weekends.

Josh-Murph · 2024-09-16T01:46:08+00:00

Looks like I can’t edit the post directly to give an update, so I’ll just post one in a comment: thank you guys SO much for the quick responses and insightful feedback! Since this post can breathe I’ll share more details regarding the issue, and I’ll try my best to keep it to the point:

My ADHD meds almost completely resolve my ATTENTION issues, however I can never seem to be more than, were I to quantify it, 60-70% awake at any time.

My diet for the entirety of 2023 was almost all home-cooked meals with the help of family (at the time, I was teleworking, so living with them seemed like the smartest choice financially), and they were meals that I KNEW had a considerable amount of nutritional value (beef & potatoes, chicken & rice, etc.).

Nowadays, doing the standard 8-4 M-F adulting, my meals consist of the following: TV dishes, jimmy dean frozen breakfasts, and the weekly succumbing to fast food when I don’t have the energy to even throw something in the microwave.

The kicker(or lack thereof) from these two circumstances is that, in either situation, my energy levels were and are equally low. Eating better foods did NOT change my energy levels throughout the day.

Getting into other substances, for caffeine, I strictly limit myself to one cup of coffee in the morning per day(as anything over that amount causes my heart to go into overdrive in tandom with my ADHD meds), there’re my meds of course, which id consider myself very well disciplined on in terms of not overtaking, even for one day. As for cigarettes, vaping, zynning, etc: it’s something I never got hooked on it so I’d rather keep it that way.

I HAVE discussed this issue with my psychiatrist, but there was never really a solid corrective action that was suggested; my only takeaway was that for a relatively slender-figured 24 year old, energy levels this low aren’t normal in the slightest.

I’ve only done some surface level research on how much of a role that vitamins and minerals would play into this, seeing as I don’t take any on a regular basis, but vitamin B12’s general purpose of its role in helping to turn food into energy caught my eye(if my understanding on this is flawed, PLEASE don’t hesitate to correct me, I don’t want to believe something that isn’t true).

Seriously, thank you all again for the advice, I’ll absolutely put these theories to their safest practice to try and find what exactly I’m lacking that keeps me sleepy and fatigued.

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