So there I was, taking the Network+ Exam. I'm a Certmaster victim so I had a hope of passing the exam. I answered all the multiple choice questions, I was beginning to feel the tediousness of the exam set in. Then came the PBQs that I saved for later. I answered one PBQ, then came the following PBQ. For the agreement's sake, I couldn't tell you how, but something I felt was broken in the question, so I reached out to tech support. I was taking the exam from home. As soon as the lady on the computer thought she understood the situation (albeit neither did I), she closed me out of my exam. She said stuff that was garbled in the attenuation of an international call and then she hung up. Frantically I called CompTIA's support number, they said the exam still said it was in progress, I couldn't finish it. They said please call pearsonvue. She gave me pearsonvue's number. So I said "Thanks" and I called pearsonvue. The man on the phone said my testing was still in session, I frantically explained "I got closed out of a perfectly good exam, I just didn't understand the question." He was like "we still have a support ticket submitted so you need to wait two days before you can hear back from us as to whether you can retake the exam or if you cheated or whatever. They were going to do a full investigation into the matter, and anything that would go wrong, I've used my test take voucher and failed the exam. So I kept my head held high, Installed Ghost Recon Breakpoint and started taking my frustrations out on Jace Skell. The rest of that day I wondered how I was going to not lose sleep over this. So I use an iPad in bed, as does every other Techie, and I get an email at 11pm at night from CompTIA. They said "We have concluded our investigation, thank you for using PearsonVUE. If you would like to schedule another exam, please log on to yada yada yada." No results, no pass, no fail, no information. So I went onto CompTIA's website and logged in, it said "CompTIA Network+" next to my existing active "CompTIA A+" and I fully expected to click on it and see "FAIL". But I clicked on it, it said "PASS". My first thought was "Well what does "PASS" even mean? No "atta boy", no "congratulations", no "good job." Well it was obvious that it was just a way to tell me what I already should have known if I finished the exam. It was that I passed an incomplete Network+ Certification Exam! Ecstatic, I leaped from my bed, "YES!!! FUCK YES!!!!!!" I ran to my parent's bedroom, banging on the door. "HEY GUYS I AM NETWORK+ CERTIFIED!!!!" They said "Good. Now go to bed."

Hey everyone,

I'm active-duty military and currently work in a logistics MOS. I'm trying to earn my CompTIA Security+ as part of preparing for a future transition into technology/cybersecurity.

I've been studying since around mid-June, mostly after work and during whatever free time I can find. It's now basically September, and I'm honestly getting pretty discouraged.

I've watched training material vis all of Profesor Messor's security+ videos on YouTube, taken notes, written down missed questions and explanations, used ChatGPT to review concepts, and even listened to material during my commute. I've been taking Jason Dion practice exams, but I'm generally scoring around the 60% range, with my highest score being about 74%.

The frustrating part is that when I review individual concepts, I often understand them. But then a practice exam throws completely different terminology or scenarios at me and I fall apart. For example, I'll understand concepts like risk management, vulnerabilities, access controls, etc., but then suddenly I'm getting hit with ports, OSI layers, CSRF versus session hijacking, ad hoc concepts, protocols, and other terminology I apparently haven't memorized well enough.

I know I probably need to spend more time memorizing things like common ports and networking layers, but I'm genuinely wondering what am I doing wrong?

I constantly see people online saying they passed Security+ after studying for 2–3 weeks, or even a month, and meanwhile I've been studying for multiple months while working full-time and I'm still struggling to consistently score well on Dion's exams.

Is Security+ actually significantly harder than people make it sound? Are Dion's exams intentionally harder than the real thing? Is my study method inefficient?

For anyone who struggled initially but eventually passed, what finally made things click for you?

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who:

Worked full-time while studying

Came from a non-IT background

Started without much networking/cybersecurity knowledge

Struggled with practice exams but eventually passed

At this point, I really want to earn this certification. I'm not trying to become an overnight cybersecurity expert—I just want to accomplish something meaningful and build toward a different career path.

Any honest advice would be appreciated. What would you do differently if you were in my position?

I studied for n + for 2 months and did practice exams all the different 4 domains has improved by the 4th practice exam except network troubleshooting I don't know when to just follow comptia's methodology and when not , when to go for the physical solution and when not to

so does anyone have any tips for it

Lastly I am stuck at 77% in Andrew Ramadyal's exams and Dion's exams am I ready for the exam ?

TL;DR - Put a lot of focus into setting up my old unused laptop as the test PC that I would use at home for a remote-proctored exam. I encountered an issue that caused my laptop to crash twice that was NOT a part of the conventional "test your OnVue PC setup."

Yeah so you guys know the OnVue software that you guys can run at home home as a test to make sure that your PC can handle running it and that your internet connection it is satisfactory and your webcam is working and all that stuff? Great, yeah me too. I did that two or three times, about 14 hours ago in preparation for the exam that I was supposed to take 90 minutes ago.

The issue that I encountered is one that no one could have seen coming from a reasonable perspective, unless maybe you are a seasoned PC repair technician. Here goes: I checked in early and I waited in the queue to get put into my exam. The proctor asked me to show them my desk. So I unplug my mouse, keyboard, and power cord to move the laptop in a way to give them a full view of my desk. They checked that off and said it was fine. Then I plugged my power cord, mouse, and keyboard back into the PC. This is where the first crash happened. I panicked. They called me on my phone and told me, that the situation is fine, just hop back on and launch the OnVue software again. I got past all of the checks onvue does with your PC, then the proctor asked to see my desktop again. I unplug my power cord, my keyboard, and my mouse again. The proctor tells me it's just fine. Then I plug everything back in, my keyboard last. The laptop crashed yet again, but I thoroughly isolated the issue: when I plug my keyboard back into my laptop while OnVue is running, it crashes.

For a third time I tried doing everything again but they wouldn't let me back into the OnVue System. Now I'm stuck waiting to see if I have been failed for the exam or if I can reschedule and take it one more time. This actually sucks because I have a laptop that is so old some keys have fallen off of the keyboard. Also, this issue was not encountered, and could not be encountered, conventionally speaking, during the practice OnVue run that I'm sure many of you have done.

I have a linux laptop, but I'm not sure if it can run the OnVue testing system or not.

EDIT: The real headache is not setting up my laptop. The real headache is that I have an entire home lab consisting of a desktop, two laptops, a mini PC, and a Raspberry Pi device, and I have to remove all of these things from my main desktop and make sure that only my laptop is visible during the exam, as well as the peripherals that I use with that laptop. This is just something that you guys may need to consider. I'm fortunate that I am in a position that I won't feel the hit from this if I am failed or unable to reschedule, but this is something for you guys to bear in mind.

EDIT 2: It's not a complete loss. I've been wanting to re-arrange some things on my homelab, but yeah. In case anyone was interested, the exam I wanted to take was SecAI+.

EDIT 3: I was refunded the voucher code that I purchased.

I use flashcards, but it isn't sticking. Not sure what else to do at this stage.

I studied day in & day out for this exam for 2 weeks!! Anyone take the 004 version?

Bout time I had this tbh. Onto the next 🫡🫡

During my CySA+ exam, the mouse pointer became unresponsive, displaying a loading icon. The proctor instructed me to relaunch the application. Upon doing so, there was a one-hour delay before I was readmitted to the exam. Shortly after rejoining, the mouse pointer again became stuck on loading, preventing any interaction. The proctor then informed me that all troubleshooting options for my exam were exhausted, a ticket would be raised, and subsequently closed my exam session.

I have yet to receive any communication regarding this incident and am concerned about the next steps. I am also unable to find a way to contact customer support. Please advise.

Edit: Pearson site is showing Pass with scorecard, did I really pass? As the proctor said they will reschedule? As there is no certification on the Comptia site.

I’m a week late (my apologies) but I was finally able to obtain my network plus certification!

I’ll keep this short

10 years of IT Experience
3 years of that as an IT Manager
Got an opportunity for a security analyst position that requires Sec+
Used Prof Messer notes and practice exams
I scored 764 and passed but I feel like it was luck

Not complaining ,I’m just venting for any productive input haha

I'm planning on taking the CompTIA Sec+ exam in mid-late September. I just want to know when is the current exam going to be depracated and is writing it next month alright?

Screenshot of my order 3 years ago.

My CySA+ CS0-003 exam is tomorrow and I’m getting pretty nervous.

This will be my first CompTIA exam, and the exam fee is quite expensive for me. My employer requires me to pass it and has said they’ll reimburse the cost if I pass, so I really don’t want to fail.

So far, I’ve only completed the Sybex CySA+ Study Guide. I’m scoring around 75–85% on the practice tests, but the mocks I used didn’t have any PBQs, which is making me even more nervous.

I know the passing score is 750/900, which is roughly 83% if you look at it as a percentage, so I’m wondering:

Based on my preparation and practice scores, what do you think my chances of passing are?

For those who have recently passed CS0-003:

What should I absolutely revise tonight/tomorrow morning?

How difficult were the PBQs?

What topics surprised you on the actual exam?

Any exam-day tips or strategies?

Is there anything you wish you had done differently the day before?

Any advice from people who have cleared it would be really appreciated.

I’m trying not to panic, but the first CompTIA exam + the cost + employer requirement is making me pretty anxious.

P.S. English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to polish the wording of this post. The questions and details are all my own.

Edit: I passed !!

I took Core 1 in June so 2/3 months gap in-between. I studied much less for this than core 1 and did find it easier

Failed my first A+ 2001
Net+ 2005
Sec+ 2012
A+ 2022
Cloud+ 2022
CYSA - 2022
Project+ 2023
CASP - 2024

I am on Jason Dion practice exam # 8 now and i scored an 82.. my average score is 77 between all 8 exams.. Honestly this class made me realize I enjoy Networking much more. I just want to test out of it and be done with it so I can move on my my CCNA.

I don't have professional IT experience. I had some extra time this month and figured I'd see how far I could get with CompTIA. Which cert should I do next?

I'm thinking to do the CompTIA a+ this year or next but what can did you skip on studying or in the test.i am thinking to skip the performance base quest and the port because of my leaning disability don't let me I hope I can do good at the rest of the lesson or questions. I see every day people studied a bit and pass and have no experience.

Mainly passed using Jason Dion's practice questions, chatGPT explainers, and Professor Messer's youtube videos (in that order).

Took the practice exams and studied the questions I got wrong.

Since I already had the educational and professional experience, the biggest problem for me was taking the time to study and coming up with the money to pay these ridiculously expensive exams, lol. CCNA next.

I failed the 1st time in 2020 because I wasn't as familiar with the exam format and the PBQs really surprised me in the beginning there.

Hi everyone. I'm studying for Network+ and I'd like your help to evaluate my learning material, because I'm not sure if it will be enough.

First I started studying through the learning portal of my company (Skillsoft Percipio) which has a lot of courses for free for many certifications including net+, but I found the content too summarized.

Then I switched to Professor Messer's videos on Youtube and found it very good, however still a little bit summarized.

Then along with Messer's videos I started reading the book 'CompTIA Network+ Study Guide' from Todd Lammle and Jon Buhagiar and I found the content here very well detailed and amazing!

Once finishing the book above, I'll start reading the 'Comptia Network+ practice Tests'. Both books are available for free in my company learning portal.

Do you think I have a good learning material to pass network+?

Currently studying for the CySA+
I have both the A+ and Net+ and have only used a combination of Professor Messer and Jason Dion in the past.

This time around I have used the Sybex study guide and Jason dion. I have not been doing extremely well on the Jason dion practice tests... I usually score around 70-75%

On the pocketprep exams though I am scoring between 80-90%.

I do find the pocketprep questions to be easier... are they lower quality? Which ones should I rely more heavily on?

I also got the sybex practice questions but I honestly find them to be unnecessarily harder than the previous two so I have not used them much.

TLDR; what to do if you feel like you’ve hit a threshold with all things / scenarios applied, and follow through to ensure success.

So im back a few months later, a refined structure and approach to this exam, ive been using Virtual Machines, Dions Practice exams, different OS’s on oracle VM manager (i am getting consistent 80s or above my max score / PB is 83%) my lowest in this range is like a 76.

I do want to point out a few things, I note take and watch videos alot, like to the point where i turn my phone off and just study for like an hour or more. i study at work, on break at work, after work and i reserve my practice exams for weekends.

I also want to input that i do have documented memory loss short and long, so i have to compensate for the amount of things that i have in my pentesting rolodex in my head. I love this field, i wouldnt want to do anything else in devops or red teaming. I guess my question is what do i do now? i feel like i have hit a threshold with my practice exams and considering the Questions shuffle everytime, there is no way my brain can predict all the randomness for 90 questions, i’d say my strongest domains are 1-4, my most troubling right now is 5, which leaves me at a 70% on that domain for completion.

i guess my question is what should i do next to ensure my success.

Thanks.

Decided to take my Network+ after months of waiting and passed! What certs should I go for next?