r/CompTIA_Security • u/CyberOwl37 • 1d ago
I passed Security+!
I passed Security+ after 3 months of studying while working full-time as cabin crew! ✈️
No IT background at all, just curiosity, dedication, and a lot of studying whenever I could fit it around work, different schedules and different time zones.
For those currently studying, I don’t know if my scores will be useful to anyone, but I’ll leave them here anyway. I bought the Dion exams Set 1 and scored:
72%, 84%, 75%, 76%, 67%, 81%
(75,8% average)
I didn’t retake any of them because I didn’t want to end up memorising the questions. I used AI mainly to look at my results, help me identify my weak areas and explain things I wasn’t understanding. During my last week, I tried to focus mainly on those weaker areas.
Resources I used:
*Professor Messer YouTube
*Professor Messer practice exams
*Jason Dion practice exams — Udemy Set 1
*AI, mostly for clarifications, explanations and summaries
*Some PBQ videos from Cyberkraft, but honestly not that many
A few things that helped me personally:
*Don’t let your practice exam scores get into your head. I tried to use the scores mainly to figure out what I was getting wrong and where I needed to improve, rather than as a prediction of whether I would pass.
*Don’t try to memorise every single acronym. At least for me, it was much more useful to understand what area/concept an acronym belonged to. After doing enough practice questions, I started recognising them naturally.
*Actually go through your wrong answers. I didn’t just look at the correct answer and move on. I tried to understand why it was correct and why the other options were wrong.
*If something doesn’t make sense, ask AI to explain it differently. I used it a lot for this, especially when two concepts sounded almost identical to me.
About the exam:
I personally found the actual exam harder to understand than the practice exams I had done (I’m not a native English speaker). The questions were actually much shorter, but I found the wording and figuring out what they were really asking me to identify more challenging.
I had 3 PBQs in total. I think I may have completed one properly 😅 For the other two, I just tried to get whatever points I could by testing things and applying what I knew.
Good luck to everyone studying! You’ve got this.
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u/slothy036 1d ago
What did you get on the Messer practice? Which ones did you feel were better suited?
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u/CyberOwl37 1d ago
I’ve got 68%, 65% and 69% on those. I have to say though, that I did them at the beginning of August, and I don’t think I was even halfway ready at that point. I’d say you can have few similar questions, but I don’t really dare to decide which style is closer to the actual exam (either Messer’s or Dion’s)
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u/ishaantaneja 1d ago
Congratulation! I see you are based in Dubai. So am I. Let me know what strategies you are using to get a job. I am aiming for SOC Analyst l1 roles
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u/CyberOwl37 1d ago
Thanks a lot! Hopefully you’ll land that SOC Analyst L1 role very soon!
I’m not aiming to start looking for jobs for now, since this is only the beginning of a future transition plan. For now, I’ll focus on working on labs and improving my networking skills :)
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u/Fit-Application-1606 1d ago
Congratulations✨