How long do you take to prepare for exams?

[Gregory Childers]

I was reading in an online forum about preparing for exams. I saw several students who mentioned they spent months preparing for certification exams. One student mentioned that he spent three months preparing for the ITF+ exam. Another student mentioned that he averaged six months per exam. Still another stated that he studied for nine months for his first exam.

Granted, I've got 25+ years of experience and have passed four versions of A+, four versions of Net+, four versions of Sec+, and two versions of CySA+ and currently have all but two of the current CompTIA certs. My first CompTIA cert was IT Project+ (now Project+). My supervisor offered me a bonus if I could pass the exam in a week and teach it the following week. I studied like crazy and passed the exam on the first try and did teach it the following week. I don't think I've ever studied for any exam longer than a few weeks. I think I spent three weeks total studying for both the PenTest+ and CASP+ combined. I spent a week studying for my CISM. I passed seven Microsoft exams to get my MCSE in two and a half months. No brain dumps, boot camps, or practice exams either. Just "nose to the grindstone" studying. I don't usually do any labs while preparing because I tend to do lab work all the time anyway.

I know that everyone has different levels of experience and every exam is different. There are a lot of variables that go into preparing for exams.

How long, on average, do you spend preparing for new certifications? How long do you spend preparing for recertifying in certs you've already earned before?

 

[Eddy Harden]

I plan to start studying for A+ next week and hope to take both parts in July.

 

[Rick Butler]

How long, on average, do you spend preparing for new certifications? How long do you spend preparing for recertifying in certs you've already earned before?

Time to take off the fedora - this is some real Rick Butler for you...

For me, if I'm completely heads down, I can get it done in a few weeks, at a rate of 1-2 hours of study a day. But rarely in my rather chaotic life am I able to focus like that. For example, I didn't get much done at all in March toward my studies. I am involved in so much in my life that trying to do an hour of reading when it's 11pm and I'm running an episode of Babylon 5, half falling asleep as I scroll the material - it's tough to put in the prime brain time.

My biggest issue is confidence. I underestimate my own capabilities so when, objectively, I might be ready, I don't believe I am, so I go back through the book again and again, notes, and so on. I review whatever literature I can find, secondary and tertiary materials and such. I think it took me a year for Cloud+ and two years for CySA+ at my first attempts. I passed both well in the 800s, but I felt, going in, I was ill-prepared.

I was, really, utterly shocked in December with the CASP+. I thought I had cratered it.

I have a need to understand it, not just for certification purposes, but to truly understand and know it. For example, going through the CTT+, I have put Kolb and Kirkpatrick's Models on my whiteboard. Should probably do the same with Gagne's model too... I look at them often. I need to apply them in my life, not just the academic learning that comes from just bland certification preparation. Otherwise, the information, to me, is meaningless.

With WiFi 6, for example, I was trying to remember what the new authentication standard was, as I was writing this. Sigh...Google. Oh, SAE, Simultaneous Authentication of Equals...why? Oh, because Diffie-Hellman does not have an authentication mechanism, so SAE uses a PSK and MAC address to overcome that challenge.

See...I have to know it - hope it stays in the brain this time.

So yeah, my personal issue is confidence, tying out of low self-esteem and the like, which plays into it. (yeah, a little more deep than your question called for, Greg, but it's a reality that I think a LOT of students face - and why they don't test when they might just actually be able to pass)

But I hit the wall on study - where I simply cannot study a topic anymore, that it doesn't sink in any further than what it will. When I hit the wall, I know that's probably when I say, "I just got to go take the exam now". And I go to the test center, afraid that "this is it - this is the test I fail" ( do not abide failure well). And I pass the exam. Sigh of relief. Spin up the next book and put myself into the grinder again.

Maybe on some level, I make it look easy. And perhaps I should personally apologize to the CIN who read my posts because in reality, it is so hard for me that there are times when I feel like a fraud for having passed an exam and yet I do not know everything on an application level. But I also crave the achievement - it's one of the few ways I feel personally validated in life.

Anyway, let me put my fedora back on and back it off here. Hope this post makes sense to folk.

/r

 

[Gregory Childers]

@Rick Butler I'm sure everyone deals with imposter syndrome at some point. I still do. That's why I aggressively pursue new certifications. Not to prove to others what I know, but to prove to myself what I know. I NEVER feel like I know enough.

I thought I would fail my CySA+ when I first took it. Not only did I pass, but I also passed the next version of it six months later. I felt the same way about the PenTest+ and the CASP+ but somehow managed passing scores on the first attempt on both.

Over time I realized, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. I never cram the day of an exam or the day before. I strongly believe that the entirety of a person's preparation helps them pass, not just the last few hours. And I have always learned more AFTER taking an exam than BEFORE taking one. And I'm ok with that.

I understand the confidence issue. I study until I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass. The more exams I take, the better I'm able to judge when I've done enough to prepare.

 

[Abby N Krane]

How long, on average, do you spend preparing for new certifications? How long do you spend preparing for recertifying in certs you've already earned before?

When I first took the A+, I was not working and kids were at school during the day. I'd spend most of the day studying for months. I also did the Google IT Support Professional in there for some practice. I used everything I could get my hands on to study with. For Network+ and Secuity+ I did each under a month but was lucky enough to have 40-hour week-long classes for each. I decided at the very last minute to use the PenTest+ voucher before it expired last week, I put in about 10 hours of half-a$$ed studying because of work and family commitments and did not pass. The first exam I have not passed, but I did considerably better than I thought I would and I'm not upset. The PBQs did me in, I am certain if I did better on those I would have passed, I was close. It was good practice though. I will reattempt this summer after I can dedicate more time.

In an ideal world, I'd put a couple of hours each day in over 3-4ish weeks for something that is entirely new to me, like PenTest was. (I only have done up through Security+ at this point). I'd probably want around 50 hours of study spread over different types for a new exam. I also want to be able to understand and learn, not just regurgitate to pass.

I tell my ITF+ and A+ students to dedicate 2 hours each day between the time class is done until they take the exam. And not to study the day of, or the night before. They can make a notes sheet to review if they want, but it's not the type of thing you can "cram" for.

 

[Fanuel]

A month is more than enough to prepare the exam.

 

[Jill West]

I usually take 2-4 months to study for each exam, but then, I'm usually studying for at least 2 exams at a time (plus teaching, writing, going to school this year, martial arts, husband, kids...you know, life). Also, I'm certain the last-minute cramming helps me. I've almost always got knowledge gaps going into exams because there's just not enough time to do all the studying I want to do. So I'll cram topics within those gaps. I'm certain I only passed the PenTest+ because of the last-minute cramming. There were things I knew nothing about until 24 hours before I took the exam. But I also have the ability to actually learn from that cramming--it doesn't just disappear after the exam. I think the adrenaline helps kick things in gear so I absorb faster and retain it fairly well, especially if I see questions on the exam related to those areas (which I nearly always do).

 

[Rick Butler]

...I'm certain I only passed the PenTest+ because of the last-minute cramming.

I think it was that way with me on the CASP+. Hearing there was a virtual performance question, I did a review of potential scenarios that come up. Glad I did, because the commands I reviewed were huge. Good thing the man pages were available so I didn't necessarily have to cram the syntax.

I never really could do more than one exam at a time on my schedule, but I may do that in the coming months - picking two exams that have a synergetic relationship, like Linux and PenTest or Cloud and Azure/AWS and go from there. But just like Jill, life gets in the way and, while this may be heresy on CIN, there are reportedly more important things than taking tests.

(this is where @Stephen Schneiter says "bourbon")

 

[Gregory Childers]

I didn't realize that you couldn't skip the VM question and come back to it on the CASP+. I never even attempted it, but I still passed the exam. I couldn't even tell you what the scenario was or what task it was asking me to accomplish. I guess I did well enough on the rest so it didn't matter. I used Mike Chappel's LinkedIn Learning course to review the information the week before taking the exam, but that was all the preparation I did.

My goal is to pass nine certification exams by the end of the year. I hope to have Linux+ and CISSP done by next month so I can really start cranking a few out after that.

 

[Michael Schmitz]

Depending on the Exam and the Content.
I have taken ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity with like 2h preparation.
I spend over 1 Year yet for CEH Practical or EC CCSE. (not every day).
But often 1-2 Weeks are planned for Preparation.
New Stuff for me takes longer..

But that are my 2c.

 

[Rick Butler]

A story that may relate on this thread:

A man walked into a bar and saw a famous sketch artist sitting at the bar. The patron saddled up next to the artist buying him a drink and asking him, "would you sketch a picture of me?". The artist chuckled and with a quick few passes of his pen on a cocktail napkin, finishing within five minutes, creating a stunning little sketch.

The patron asked, "how much do you want for this?".

The artist said, "I'll take $500."

The patron was stunned, objecting and saying, "But, it only took you five minutes.".

The artist said, "That's where you're wrong, sir. It didn't take me five minutes to sketch this. It took me thirty years, practicing, making mistakes, getting laughed at for all the previous attempts and failures, the opportunities come and gone, as well as all the costs of all the ink and paper to refine my technique. For all that, I think $500 is a bargain, since my signature is already on this piece."

The patron still objected, "Piece? But it's just a sketch on a cocktail napkin!"

The artist said, "If that's what it is to you, then you can't have it at all.", placing his wet drink on it and ruining the work. "Thanks, for the drink."

I think you can find the meaning here.

/r

 

[Nigel@Cyberdyne Systems]

If we assume they can get through the content of the syllabi for any qual laser than CySa/Pentest+ in 10 days of full time study with all labs and resource material viewed. Then I would suppose that they can study for 4 weeks full time and then sit the exam.

If they needed longer than that I would argue that they were sitting an exam at a level too high for their actual real world experience.

In effect zero to hero for Sec+ could then be sold as 3-6 weeks with an average or 4-5 weeks depending on previous experience.

I think it is unfair to base these examples on how fast we as instructors and practitioners often of decades take to assimilate and understand the material as frequently we are just rearranging knowledge into the format of this exam in comparison to ISC2 or ISACA or NIST etc rather than learning something from scratch.

That time for concepts, that we take for granted, to be on the tip of our tongue is very easy to be passe about but is actually the thing that we spot the moment we talk to each other that the students will not have yet.

So although I get that many of you can pass these exams in two weeks flat that is likely unrealistic unless our input are university students in IT based degrees who are adding a qual on the side and looking for a verification badge to add to the CV upon graduation. That type of student can of course see these quals off in a few weeks.

The same would apply to serving soldiers and officers or government employees who have been given formal training but do not have the civil quals and are either looking to resettle or just have civil quals at thier disposal for future use or plain old bragging rights!

 

[Gregory Childers]

Some additional information:

I've been seeing a lot of students mentioning that they had studied for several months to prepare for the A+/Net+/Sec+ exam but but barely managing a passing score. They all mention that their primary resources are Professor Messer's free videos and Jason Dion's Udemy practice exams.

I've been teaching CompTIA courses for almost 20 years. It legitimately takes 40 hours of instruction per exam to cover 100% of the objectives in lectures and demonstrations. Throw in labs and it can take even longer. While I love Professer Messer's resources, they typically only add up to 10 hours of lecture per exam. I've told my students that it's great as a supplimental resource but should never be their primary resource. The first two resources I recommend are the exam objectives from the CompTIA site and a good solid book, such as the CompTIA official curriculum. The books will cover 100% of the material, not just 25%-40%. I also tell them to take practice exams from CyberVista, MeasureUp, Boson, and (of course) CompTIA Certmaster. And I also tell them to do a ton of hands on lab work. Build a VM. Break stuff. And then fix it.

Part of the reason people are taking months to prepare is that they're not using adequate resources.

 

[Jill West]

I used Mike Chappel's LinkedIn Learning course to review the information the week before taking the exam, but that was all the preparation I did.

I'm running through his Data+ course before taking that exam. His videos are really good!