So, if you’ve been reading this blog, you might notice that I’ve been gone for a minute. That’s because I was taking a certification exam for my job. No one asked me to do this, I had bought the vouchers for this exam and another one last year and they were about to expire. The two certifications were Cloud+ and Server+. For those in the IT world, I have the trifecta and I wanted to make myself more competitive in the job market by having a few more.

Well, after looking on a lot of forums, turns out that Cloud+ isn’t that useful so I didn’t bother studying for that exam. It looks like people are looking that you have specific knowledge of the big three Cloud companies, Amazon, Google and Azure. Still got a 680 on it. 70 more points and I would have passed. I focused on Server+ because I thought that that was the safest bet.

The fact of the matter, is that I did pass. I’ve seen a lot of people talking online on strategies on how to pass these exams and considering I’ve passed five on the first try I thought that my method might help others. This will help specifically with the trifecta exams.

Study Materials

This is in no way an ad and I think there could probably be better resources out there. These are the ones that worked for me. I bought the Jason Dion Full Courses and Practice exams on Udemy(don’t buy full price, they have sales constantly). I think that Jason is personable, comprehensive and straight forward with his information. I had to use a different video series for Server+ and honestly it didn’t help that much so I had to buy the guidebook online. That was really useful and I think the best way to study for that exam.

But the thing that helped me the most was that for his practice exams each question is listed with the different objective that he was trying to teach you. Why is that important? Well, let’s go to my methodology.

Methodology

To get started, I watch all of the videos. This is about a ten or so commitment because I can only watch about two hours of study before my brain starts rejecting the information. You might be able to go further than me and if so, go for it. You’re going to need to make a spread sheet with the objective number in column 1, wrong answers for column 2 and objective name for column 3.

Now, it’s time to take all five of the exams. These are not open book, you need to know what you know and what you don’t. So, take all of your exams and then start going through the incorrect questions. This is where having those objectives for each question is going to come in handy. Let me show you what my first round looked like.

Now, this was for Security+. I took all the exams and went through the wrong answers adding them to that second column. The coloring system is different on this one so I’ve included the new one I use and it is thus:

Green: 0-5

Yellow: 6-10

Orange(That pinkish-orange color): 11-15

Red: 16 or above

So, we know what we need to focus on. We’re going to take two weeks to forget what the questions were so that we’re not just remembering them and going through the material again. After that two weeks, we’ll take it again and see if we’ve improved. Keep that up until you have a majority of green and are getting around a 75% on Jason’s exams and you should be able to pass. The point for each round of studying is to shrink the amount you don’t know.

NOTE: JASON’S EXAMS ARE NOT WHAT THE EXAM IS MADE UP OF. I SAW SOMEONE MEMORIZE THAT ONLY AND HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY HE FAILED. IT’S AN EXPENSIVE MISTAKE.

Speaking of expense, if you’re in school you get a severe discount on these vouchers. Use it while you can.

I found flash cards helpful as well. If I had to wait for something, it was always nice to pull them out and test myself. Especially on the port numbers. I have a few really dumb pneumatic devices to remember them. I don’t know if it’ll help but maybe.

Port 3389- I chant in my head “Three, three, RDP. Three, three, RDP.”

Port 69- Nice. But not nice the fact that you could lose bits using TFTP(Trivial File Transfer Protocol) because it’s UDP.

Port 123- One, two, three hours on the clock. Clock. Network Time Protocol.

Port 161, 162- SNMP- Six Nix Me Pirates.

That last one might be the dumbest one.

Those are my tips. I can’t tell you what’s on the exam. Last year I took three of these in close proximity. My mind is fried. Good luck and good hunting.