Success on CS0-001 CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+) Exam

Fortunately I did not follow the mistake I made last year when I took the new version of CompTIA’s Network+ exam (obtaining a barely passing score), so I was reasonably confident that I passed when I chose to end the exam this afternoon and get the score. While 811/900 isn’t exactly a high score, I felt satisfied with it given the 2 – 1/2 hours it took me to complete the exam.

I followed the recommended pattern that I’ve explained on my “Intelligent Guessing” blog posting, speeding past the simulation questions without answering any of them to concentrate on the multiple choice questions for the first pass. Here, spending no more than a minute on each question, I decided first whether a question could be answered in a minute. If the answer was no, I marked the question and moved on immediately to the next question. If the selection could be done within a minute, I tried to provide an answer. If I was sure I was able to identify the correct answer(s), I would do so and move on to the next question (not marking the question).

In situations where I had some confidence that I selected the correct answer(s), I would answer and mark the question for later review. If I lacked confidence that any of the answers were correct, I would mark the question and move on. After finishing the final question the “review” button was enabled. Time for round two.

In this second round I continued to ignore the simulation questions, and focused solely on questions where I had not provided answers. I went through each of these questions, one at a time, providing a reasonable amount of time for each, based on the remaining available time. I wanted to be sure that I completed round two with at least 30 minutes of time remaining. Where I was sure that I had selected the right question I would unmark the question.

The third round was devoted to the simulations. These can be challenging, particularly on a twelve inch monitor. Their quality as compared with previous CompTIA exams I’ve taken was a little better. Not great; just a little better. Only “requirement” was not to spend an overwhelming amount of time on each question, providing a sufficient amount of time to review the answered by marked questions (fourth round).

The fourth and final round was a quick pass by each question that was marked, but answered. Here the inspection was limited to checking each one to see if I had made a stupid error. I did not change a single answer (pretty much normal for me). With over two hours of test taking behind me, sound judgment isn’t something I can rely upon. Meaning to change an answer will likely result in a wrong answer.

I hate those pictures that appear on the scoring report (see below). One piece of advice is to carefully focus your studying on the Exam Objectives. I found the GTSlearning Book very helpful along with the video series at ITPro.TV.

Certification Exam Scoring Sheet

14 thoughts on “Success on CS0-001 CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+) Exam

  1. On the low side of what I expected. My expectation was between 3 and 5. That appears to be a typical pattern. My sense is that number will depend on the pool of questions you receive. Again, as I repeatedly remind people, follow the pattern of skipping those and tackling the multiple choice questions first. It is extremely important to do so for time management purposes.

  2. Good job Steve and thanks a lot for sharing your experience and so much information about this exam.

    It is very helpful indeed.

  3. Steve: Question, I am new to security. I just picked up my Security+ last monday. I would like to get this CSA+, but I am really having a hard time figuring out which is going to be the best resource for me to study. From what I am reading here, the resource you used was only the GTS learning? Is that what you would recommend? I picked up a book by Troy McMillan for the CSA+, but I am not quite sure that is going to be a good enough resource just yet. Thanks.

    • Good afternoon John. One addition you should consider is the CSA+ practice-labs (www.practice-labs.com ). I had California community college faculty use them (and actually rate them) at a CST+ 5-day faculty workshop I taught last week here in California (see http://www.wastc.org/images/documents/fdw2017/CyberSecurityAnalyst.pdf). Faculty response relative to lab quality was good, although there were some issues raised with regard to grammar in the lab manuals, but that is to be expected from educators.

  4. Thank you for the valuable feedback, If you can remember what were some of the simulations based on?

    thanks in advance

    • I can’t honestly remember. I know on the 12 inch monitor in the testing booth, I was challenged because of the limited screen area. Go to a testing center with a flat screen TV size monitor.

  5. Hi Steve, I was wondering what is the best book to use as a guide in csa+, there’s Wiley, Pearson, and McGraw available. I’m not sure what to read.

  6. This was an easy exam to pass. If you have the relevant experience in information security of course. I paid $10 for a udemy.com course – I received CPEs for my other certs…and it gave me an idea of the exam material.

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