I passed the CompTIA Network+ exam and only spent $30 on exam materials (other than the test). Since I’ve been focusing on learning information technology topics lately, I wanted to try to document how I got to where I’m at in hopes that it helps others.

This article focuses on my study materials and general thoughts on how I passed the CompTIA Network+ exam.

First of all, I’ll tell you right now that if you don’t know how to subnet, you should stop reading right now and go search for that topic. I’ll probably write my personal take on how to do it in a future article since it’s such a popular topic.

Next, go ahead and buy this book. I got one book. This one is it.

I’m a big fan of the All in One books because they come with end-of-chapter summary questions and a practice exam in the back. My personal choice has been to buy these books on Kindle because I like to knock out a few pages when I have a lull in my day.

Alright, now start reading that book.

Next, you’re going to listen to some videos. Let’s meet Professor Messer. He hosts extremely high quality YouTube video content with ~100 N+ exam topics and ~100 S+ exam topics.

I personally watched this video series twice. The first time was primarily for exposure to the topic with the second time being devoted to making sure I picked up the details.

Once you’re pretty far along in the book and have made some substantial progress in the videos, you should start taking the practice exams.

I found these practice exams to be pretty good. They’re free and give you a good benchmark for how you’re doing.

Once you’re hitting ~75-80% on those exams, you’re pretty close to ready. I would make sure you finish the book you bought (you paid for it after all!) and rewatch a Professor Messer video or two.

Now this last thing I’m going to post is optional. I started watching these but decided it really wasn’t going in the direction I needed it. Udemy courses are great. This one I have linked here is the one I plan on using for CCNA. It gives a pretty good insight into some Cisco-specific theory. Since Network+ is vendor neutral, it doesn’t explicitly cover Cisco gear… but the market is mostly Cisco so I’ll let you be the judge of what to focus on.

I will add that I have looked at the Pocket Prep questions and, while convenient, they seem to be a bit on the easy side. They offer a free trial so you can give it a go. Just don’t get overconfident.

Okay, let’s go to the exam.

You’re going to get a small number of Performance Based Questions and a large number of multiple choice questions. Skip the PBQs. Don’t even look at them. They’re going to take a disproportionate amount of time and will ruin your mood. Knock out the multiple choice questions. Flag the ones you’re not sure about (including the PBQs) and then review them.

Once you’re totally done with multiple choice, spend the rest of your time on the PBQs. Some of them might not make any sense even if you know the material. Generally you’re dragging and dropping something, configuring something, or otherwise reading and responding to something. An example might be looking at some server information and figuring out why it isn’t able to reach a specific host.

In one case, I’ve had the PBQ break during an exam. I put in a chat request and the agent told me that the question wouldn’t be counted… so if that happens, that’s what to expect (probably).

The most stressful part of the exam is definitely between the “SUBMIT” and trying to click through a survey before seeing your results.

I hope this helped you and happy studying!

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