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.
