SEC+ Certified 790!

Ive been a lurking on here since November 2019. I was given my first IT job offer contingent on becoming A+ certified. I have never done well in school, primarily because I have no interest in anything when it comes to academics, school, or studying. So here i am, having to face my enemy to get a big pay raise and launch into a professional career.

I scored 766 and 715 on the two A+ exams using Testout to build a baseline of knowledge and Messar along with Dions practice exams to drill the material home. Luckily I was able to pass both exams on my first try and start my new job. I was beyond pumped, I couldn’t believe i had become certified.

During orientation i was told i needed to become Sec+ certified within 6 months. Ugh, seriously? There’s nothing i wanted to do less than study for an arguably more difficult cert.

Because of the pandemic, i had a lot of time to study during work hours as I’m at home with limited telework capability. I spent about 2 months preparing. My resources included testout, messar, and dions tests along with taking notes item by item on the course objectives. I took notes on all the questions i got wrong on each of dions tests and took them again (the first 3 atleast) a second time getting 100% or close to it. My scores for the first attempt of each exam were 51, 72, 84,71, 77, 82. (Personally thought the actual exam was a tad easier)

My scores weren’t great which kept me from having confidence in myself. The biggest boost of confidence came from this subreddit. So many of you have been successful and detailed your experience. Many of you posted your dion test scores and went on to do very well on the cert. Seeing all of you have success and reading your posts built up my confidence.

As of this morning, I hadn’t scheduled my exam. I went through exam compass to try and drill down my weaknesses and do my best to memorize what I could. I had one Dion test left to take. I told myself, Ill take the actual exam ASAP if I get above an 80. I scored an 82 and immediately became super stressed. Within 4 hours, I scheduled, tested, and passed the sec+ exam on my first try!

Thank you all for giving me the confidence I needed to tackle this exam!