Congratulations, you made it to the end of the course.
Now we have covered a lot of material
during our time together.
Throughout this course, we've already covered 27 sections
and roughly 300 lessons in order to provide you
with everything you need to know
in order to understand all five domains
of the CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 exam.
Now let's review those five domains one more time
because we really haven't talked about them specifically
since our very first few lessons together.
Now, I know we didn't cover these domains in order
and that's totally okay.
We covered them all throughout the time together
in this course, but I rearranged them
to make it easier for you to understand
and learn in the best possible way.
Now, CompTIA isn't known for ordering their domains
in the most logical and straightforward order sometimes.
Instead, this list is not designed to be taught in order
and they're listed basically in this PDF as a big checklist
of everything you're going to get questions on the exam.
Now, I promise we did cover everything listed
in those exam objectives and each of their sub-bullets
as we went through the lessons in this course together.
Now, the CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 certification exam
contains those five domains or areas of knowledge
that you're going to receive questions on
when you sit for your certification exam.
Your first domain is called General Security Concepts
and it makes up only 12% of your exam questions.
This domain is focused on your knowledge
of fundamental security concepts, security controls,
change management processes, and cryptographic solutions.
The second domain is Threats, Vulnerabilities
and Mitigations, and it makes up 22% of your exam questions.
This domain is focused on your ability to understand
common threat actors and their motivations,
to explain common threat vectors and attack surfaces,
to explain types of vulnerabilities,
to analyze indicators of malicious activity,
and to explain the purpose of mitigation techniques
that are used to secure your enterprise systems
and networks.
The third domain we have is security architecture
and it makes up 18% of your exam questions.
Now, this domain is focused on your ability
to understand the security implications
of different architecture models, the security principles
to secure enterprise infrastructure,
the strategies to protect your organization's data,
and the importance of resilience and recovery strategies.
In domain four, we talked about Security Operations
and this makes up 28% of your exam questions.
Now, this domain is focused on your ability
to conduct threat management
and vulnerability management activities,
your ability to implement incident response
and recovery procedures,
and how you might apply common security techniques
to your enterprise systems and networks.
And then our final domain is domain five, and this is known
as Security Program Management and Oversight,
and it makes up 20% of your exam questions.
Now, this domain is focused on security governance,
risk management, and compliance,
as well as auditing assessments
and the security awareness practices.
So as you can see, this is all stuff that we covered
throughout our time together
and I hope you enjoyed our approach
of starting out with the basics of security
and then going through the less technical topics
like physical security, social engineering, data protection,
governance risk and compliance, and things like that.
Before we moved into the more technical things
like security architectures and infrastructures,
IAM solutions, technical vulnerabilities and their attacks
and how to detect malicious activity
and how to secure your systems, monitor them for attacks,
and how to conduct incident responses
if an attacker is successful.
Now, I know we covered so much information
in this course and you're probably excited to run off,
schedule your exam and take that certification
so you can finally become CompTIA Security+ certified.
But before you do,
I recommend you stick around until the end of this lesson
where I'm going to give you my top five tips and tricks
for raising your score
on the CompTIA Security+ certification exam
so you can pass that exam on your first attempt.
After all, the CompTIA Security+ exam can be expensive
and you probably don't want to have to pay for it twice.
Now, speaking of the exam, how do you sign up for it
and how do you schedule that exam?
Well, you could take it at any Pearson VUE Testing Center
around the world, either at a local testing center
or online from the comfort of your home office.
Personally, I have taken exams all over the world
including North and South America, out over in Asia,
and even in the Middle East
at different local testing centers.
But starting a couple of years ago
Pearson VUE and CompTIA have created a capability
for you to take the certification online
in the comfort of your own home or office
using the Pearson VUE OnVUE testing system.
To do this, you have to be in a room where you can be alone,
you have to have a good internet connection,
and you have to have a webcam
so the live person on the other end
can watch you while you take the exam
to ensure there is no cheating going on,
so that way the integrity of the exam remains protected.
Now, to take the exam,
you do have to purchase an exam voucher
and then you can go schedule the day
and time you want for the exam.
Now, you can do this by buying the exam voucher
at pearsonvue.com directly when you're scheduling the exam
or you can go over to the store at store.comptia.org
and buy it from the CompTIA web store.
Now, if you do either of these two options
you will pay the full retail price for your exam voucher
based on the location
of where you're going to be taking the exam at
because CompTIA uses regional pricing
and uses different pricing around the world depending on
where you're going to be taking the exam.
For example, right now here in the United States
the cost of the Security+ exam is right around $400
but if you pre-purchase your exam voucher
before you schedule the exam
you can save 10% off that price
by going to our website at diontraining.com/vouchers.
From here, you can select the voucher you need
which is the CompTIA Security+ voucher
which country you're going to be taking the exam in
and then you purchase your voucher directly from us
if we have the voucher for your particular country.
Now, currently we carry vouchers
for almost every country around the world
and we're adding new countries all the time
so it is worth taking that step
of going to diontraining.com/vouchers
to see if we carry one for where you live.
As a CompTIA platinum delivery partner
who helps tens of thousands of students
pass their exams every year,
we receive special discount rates on these exam vouchers
and we pass those savings onto you, our students
whenever you order your exam voucher through us.
Now, when you order your voucher from our website
you'll receive a unique one-time use code
and get free access to our fully searchable library
of CompTIA videos to help you with any last minute studying
you may need to do before your exam.
Now, once you have your security+ exam voucher
with that unique one-time use code,
you're going to go over to pearsonvue.com,
pick the day and time that you want to take your exam,
schedule it, and then you'll pick out
whether you want to go to a local testing center
or take the exam online using the OnVUE system.
So again, if you're willing to take that one extra step
by going to diontraining.com/vouchers first,
you're going to save 10% off the cost of the exam
and you'll get free access
to our searchable library as a bonus.
Alright, now as promised, here are my top five tips
for increasing your score on the exam.
First, use a cheat sheet.
Now, I don't actually mean that you're going to go cheat.
You're not allowed to actually carry anything
into the exam with you, but if you're taking the exam
at the local testing center
they're going to give you a whiteboard or a dry erase sheet
that's about the size of a normal piece of printer paper.
Now, once the clock begins on the exam
you can start brain dumping anything you want
onto that piece of paper.
Things like ports and protocols and terms
or anything else you might forget
by the time you get to question 66 and beyond.
Personally I recommend that you use this sheet
and then spend the first one to two minutes writing down
those important things that you may forget
later on during the exam.
Now, if you're testing at home
you will still have access to a digital whiteboard
in the exam software that you can use for this same purpose.
Remember though, you can't write anything down
on the whiteboard or the digital whiteboard
until the clock starts on your exam
and that 90 minutes starts counting down.
Now the second tip I have is to skip the simulations.
Now, simulations or performance-based questions
as CompTIA calls them are usually going to be
the first three to five questions on the exam.
Now, most students find these to be the most
difficult questions on the exam as well,
so my recommendation is that when the exam starts
you simply mark those review, skip them
and then do all your multiple choice questions first.
Then at the end of the exam
I want you to go back and do the simulations.
I don't even want you to read the simulations
your first time through the exam.
Trust me, just mark them for review, skip them, and move on.
By doing this, you're going to gain confidence
through those multiple choice questions
that are going to help you
when you get back to those simulations at the end.
When you finish going through
all your multiple choice questions,
now you can stop and go back
and do those first three to five questions
and get those simulations out of the way.
Trust me, students who do this end up increasing their score
by at least five to 10% over their peers
who try to do the simulations at the beginning of the exam.
Trust me here, skip those simulations
your first time through the exam.
It really will help increase your score.
Now, the third tip I have is to take a guess.
If you're in doubt
I want you to take a guess from the possible answer choices.
Remember, there is no penalty
for guessing incorrectly on this exam.
Instead, you're only getting points added to your score
when you pick the right answer.
So whether you skipped a question
or you guessed it wrong, it doesn't matter.
It counts the exact same, so you might as well guess
and have a chance of getting it right.
If you're in doubt of the right answer
I want you to try to eliminate
as many answer choices as possible and then guess
between the remaining answer options.
Multiple choice questions only have four options
so if you figure out that one or two of those
simply can't be right,
you have now exponentially increased your odds
of guessing the right answer
from the remaining two or three options that you have.
Now, the fourth tip is to pick the best time for your exam.
Are you a morning person or a night person?
I want you to pick the time of day that works best for you
and your body type.
Don't try to squeeze in the exam
after working a full day in the office either.
It will not end well for you.
Now, personally, I like to schedule my exams
around 10 or 11 in the morning.
That way I could take the day off work,
I don't have to wake up super early,
and I can avoid rush hour traffic
on my way to a local testing center
if I'm going to be taking it in person.
Also, when you schedule your exam
make sure you have enough time
before the test begins to relax a little bit
before the clock starts counting down on your exam.
There is nothing worse than showing up at the testing center
at 9:59 when your exam starts at 10:00 AM.
Be there at least 20 to 30 minutes early.
Get comfortable at the facility,
use the restroom if you need to,
and then go in and take the exam.
It will definitely help to increase your score,
I promise you.
Now, my fifth and final tip is,
be confident, you've got this.
Now when you're walking into that testing center
or you're going into your home office
to take your exam online, you shouldn't be wondering,
hmm, am I going to pass?
No, instead, you should already know you're going to pass.
You should have already studied all the information
in this course.
You've watched the videos, you've taken the quizzes
and you've studied your downloadable study notes.
And if you're not confident right now
I want you to wait a few days before you schedule that exam.
In the meantime, I want you to take
a bunch of practice exams and build up your confidence.
Now, in this course,
I've included a free full length practice exam as a bonus
to help you determine if you're ready
for the real certification exam.
I want you to take that practice exam.
If you're not scoring high enough,
restudy the areas you missed
by rewatching the corresponding lessons
then take the exam again.
If you're still not confident,
go and take some more practice exams
from a good authorized source or textbook.
Now, Udemy does limit the number of practice exams
that we can include in a video course like this one
but we do have a separate practice exam only course
here on Udemy that contains six additional
full length practice exams that you can use
for additional practice.
In addition to that, we have a second set
of six practice exams that gives you more practice
if you want it, with a total of over 1,200 questions
available here on Udemy.
Now, if you want to get those courses
you can visit diontraining.com/udemy
and use the link there to purchase those practice exams
here on Udemy for the lowest price available.
Now, when you take a practice exam,
your goal is not to memorize the answer key.
After all, my team and I wrote those questions
and CompTIA writes the official exam questions.
That means you're not going to see our questions
on the exam word for word, but you are going to see
the same concepts being covered by that exam.
Now, we also try our best to mimic the way the real exam
writes their questions too,
so that way you'll be well prepared on exam day.
Most students give us the feedback
that they find our practice exams
are the closest to the real thing that you're going to find.
So please, do yourself a favor and don't try to memorize
our answer key and expect to pass the real exam.
Instead, you need to understand
why the right answer is right
and the wrong answers are wrong, and if you can do that,
you're going to be able to pass the real exam
with no problem come test day
regardless of what they ask you.
Now, when you review your practice exam results
we have provided you with detailed explanations
for every single question on our practice exams.
Please take the time to read the explanation
so you can understand why you missed a certain question
and why the right answer was right.
If you do this, you're going to end up doing really well
on the real certification exam, I promise you.
So, keep taking those practice exams until you're confident.
Then go off, schedule your exam
and walk into that testing center
knowing you're going to pass.
All right, if you follow our five tips
you are going to be ready to take and pass
your CompTIA Security+ exam on your first attempt
and I know you're going to do great on the exam,
so keep studying, take the exam,
and let us know when you pass.
Notice I said when you pass and not if you pass
that is because we are confident
in your ability to conquer this exam, and when you do,
we want to hear about it.
Post about it on Facebook, tag us in it,
go ahead and put it on LinkedIn
and then let us know that you passed this exam.
Share your success story in our Facebook group
or even go ahead and post about it
in the Q&A for this course, your fellow students and I
want to hear what worked for you and how you were successful.
Now, I know you're going to be super excited
when you receive the CompTIA Security+ certification
in the mail from CompTIA.
So once again, congratulations on making it
to the end of this course.
Now let's go put all your newfound knowledge to work
in our practice exams.
Good luck and I hope to see you again in a future course
as you continue to climb upwards in your career
and go up that CompTIA certification ladder
in the CySA+ and PenTest+.