In this lesson, we're going to cover some exam tips.
Now, before we dive into the content
for the CompTIA Network+ Certification exam in this course,
I think it's important for us to quickly discuss
some exam tips and tricks that you should know.
Now, this is going to help you better study for the exam
as you're going through our course.
It'll help you focus your study efforts
to get the most out of the material.
Now, the most important thing to remember
when you're taking the exam
is that there is not any trick questions on exam day.
Now, every question is precisely worded
to match the material you're going to be studying
if you need to, take the time to read each question
multiple times to ensure that you understand
exactly what the question is asking you
and that you're answering the question
that's actually being asked of you.
Now, as you read the questions and answers,
you should always be on the lookout
for any distractors or red herrings.
Now, generally, there's at least
one of the four answer choices listed
that are written to try and distract you
from the correct answer.
If you could identify which one that is
and eliminate it as a possibility,
you're exponentially going to increase your chances
of guessing the correct answer from the remaining options.
Now, another thing to remember is that if you see a word
in a question with bold, italics,
or written in all uppercase,
you need to pay very close attention to that word
because the testers decide those key words
were extremely important for you to consider
when answering that question.
It's also important to remember that you must answer
every question on the exam
based on your CompTIA Network+ knowledge and studies
from this course or the official CompTIA Network+
student textbook,
not from your personal workplace experience.
This is because your workplace may use different terminology
for things in your network,
or they may refer to things a little bit wrong
based on the way you deal with it in the real world
versus what you're going to deal with on exam day.
Now, for this reason, you should always
select the book answer
when you're trying to answer a question
on your certification exam,
because that's what the test writers were using
when they wrote those exam questions too.
Now, on exam day, you want to select the best answer.
Now, each question may have several right answers,
but only one is actually going to be the most right answer
because it is true most often, or in the most cases.
In the world of networking and cybersecurity,
there are rarely 100% correct answers in the real world
because everything becomes situational.
But for the exam, you have to try and select
just one answer.
So if you're in doubt, choose the answer to this correct
for the highest number of situations.
This will help you eliminate some of that doubt
you're having when you're reading those questions
and possible answer choices.
Now, when you're taking the practice exam
or the real certification exam,
I want you to try and not fight the exam
or the test questions.
Now, instead, I want you to try to understand
what is the key concept that the test writer
is asking you about in that question.
This way, when you're reading a question,
you can really figure out what is the key concept,
and then by knowing that you'll be able
to pick the right answer
or eliminate some of the wrong answers.
This will help increase your score, I guarantee it.
Now, as we go through the course,
there are going to be times
where I'm going to give you study hints
or things that you should definitely remember.
For example, anytime you hear the word confidentiality,
I want you to think about encryption.
Anytime you hear the word integrity,
I want you to think about hashing.
Anytime you hear the word availability,
I want you to think about redundancy and resiliency.
Now, don't worry too much about these just yet,
I promise we're going to cover them again
as we go through the course.
But I want to give you some examples
of this keyword association
that you need to be doing as you're going through the course
and then keeping notes of those.
Now, when it comes to the certification exam,
remember you don't have to memorize terms from this course
or the textbook word for word.
Instead, you have to be able to simply recognize them
from the answer choices given in the questions.
Now, there are no fill in the blank questions
on this exam either,
so it's all going to be either multiple choice
or multiple selection, plus a few PBQS
or performance based questions.
Now for the exam, you are not expected to know
how a specific tool or piece of software is going to work.
Everything in this exam is going to be
vendor neutral and generic.
So if they ask you to perform an action
like configuring a firewall
or troubleshooting a network device,
you're going to be doing this in a more generic environment,
not a specific Cisco, Juniper, Brocade
or other network providers equipment.
So if you're asked about a tool,
you really only need to know what that tool is used for
most of the time and not really the syntax
or how to actually operate that specific tool.
Basically, if you can define the tool
and what it's used for,
you're going to have about the right level of knowledge
for 99% of the questions you'll get on the exam
about tools and software and things like that.
So for example, if you're asked about NMAP,
yes, you should be able to pick the right answer
knowing that NMAP is the network mapping tool
and that it's used to find open ports and protocols
running on different systems on your network.
But you should not have to know the specific command
to issue in order to perform a SYN scan across your subnet
because you don't need to know how to enter the command
nmap-SS-T5 192.168.1.0/26 or something like that.
Now remember, during your certification exam,
you're going to be choosing your answers
from multiple choice style questions,
not a fill in the blank or essay style question.
Now, this is a big difference in this certification testing
and the test you may have taken
back in high school or college.
In the certification world,
you just need to be able to recognize
and not regurgitate the information
you're going to learn in this course.
So if you can remember these tips,
it's really going to help you get a higher score on the exam.
It will lead to a lot less frustration on your part
as you're preparing for the exam by watching the videos,
taking the quizzes and using our practice exams
as you're studying for the certification.
Now, one last thing before we finish up.
I want you to set a target date
for you to earn your certification by.
Do you want to be certified in the next 30 days,
60 days, or 90 days?
I don't recommend going further than about 90 days out,
and I'd recommend that you look at the calendar today
and choose a date that you plan
to earn your certification by
then, you can work backwards on the calendar
and plan out how many lessons or sections
you need to complete each day to stay on target.
For example, I know that if I want to take my exam
in 30 days from today,
I can see that there are 28 sections in the course
with the different lessons I need to finish.
Plus, I'm going to need some time
to go through the practice exams too.
So if I plan to do two sections every day,
that tells me that over the next two weeks
I will have learned all the material I need for the exam.
Now I can spend the next week taking practice exams,
and that still leaves me a few days for final review
and final preparations before I take my exam
and get certified in the next 30 days.
Now, most of my students who have a lot of free time
or more experience will complete this course
and the certification in 30 days or less.
Others who have less free time or less experience
will need about 60 days to complete the course
and the certification exam.
Basically though, if you can dedicate
one to two hours per day to studying,
you can get certified in the next 30 days.
If you can only dedicate
30 to 60 minutes per day to studying,
then you can expect to be certified in the next 60 days.
In lesson than two of this course,
I provided you with both a 30 day and 60 day study plan.
You can download as a PDF.
I recommend you choose the one that's going to work for you,
set your goal date, and then do some backward planning
to ensure you hit your target date
and start checking off those items in your study plan
until you are fully certified.
I can tell you from my experience with other students,
that people who used our study plans
will pass their certification exams
at a much faster rate, at a much higher rate
than those who try to study without a plan.
Now, I know it can seem daunting
because there are so many lessons, but you can do this.
Basically, you're going to be studying for about 40 hours
to be ready to pass your exam,
and the more concentrated your studying is,
the faster you're going to get certified.
Now, don't make the mistake of trying to study for this exam
over a six to 12 month period either.
I've seen people do it and it doesn't work
because you'll start to forget the information
that you learn from the earlier lessons
by the time you get to the end of your lessons.
So instead, try to carve out an hour or two per day
over the next few weeks and let's get you certified.