Original subtitles

hey guys hope everybody's having a great

day today we're gonna be talking about

the

security plus 501 exam um the main

reason i'm making this video is because

it was super hard when i took it when i

was prep

preparing for it and uh i had to go to

all these separate different places

so within this video i'm hoping to

provide all the links resources i used

and my own personal experiences that way

in case you're looking into cyber

security

or to grab the certification you have

one one place to go to grab everything

that you need

and i pretty much used a lot of

different things because i didn't want

to chance anything or just use one

so what i did is pretty much uh combine

a whole bunch of different learning

types whether you're hands on

or more of a site understanding where

you kind of see things happen and you

understand it

or if you're more hands on where you

need to kind of take more practical

quizzes

i'm going to include all that in the

resources below today i'm going to be

explaining the

the three-step method i use to pass this

test in three months

so i segmented it into one month per

phase

wherever you are skill level wise i'm

going to be able to help you kind of

navigate through all that before i go

into any personal experiences

or what kind of opportunities getting

the certification has opened up

i want to talk about the three-step

method i used so the method number one

for the first phase call this kind of

the getting familiar phase where you're

just learning definitions

or you're kind of just getting familiar

with the course content so

right here you're not looking to

understand absolutely everything you're

just looking to

get yourself as much familiar really

break that ice and break through that

fearful stage of not knowing anything

about this test

produces the book it looks the cover

looks exactly the same it says security

plus test it's a bit thicker

but even this one it's maybe uh double

the thickness of this book so

you can imagine the amount of content

that's in the book and it might look

really scary

so if you look at the book and you might

get fearful and then end up never

starting it all instead of kind of

segment

segmenting it that's one of the that's

the biggest thing that held me back

i spent a majority of my time getting

through a few chapters of that book

and um within the next within the last

three months where i actually got like

maybe 80 to 90

of the work done um it happened within

three months where i was kind of

procrastinating and just fearful that

i kind of almost scared of success

because i didn't know

exactly how i was going to do it so so

i'm going to provide the links in the

description as i mentioned

but the first thing i did in this step

is

i used a security plus udemy regardless

of the time in between i think

the course content's still the same it's

still a 501 but i figured that this

method

should be really helpful for anybody

who's trying to go through it and i kind

of

have a kind of direction to be pointed

into so

um i'll i'll link to actual udemy down

below

but that's the main thing i used for the

getting familiar phase i also used a

youtube series from professor messer

i'll link that as well

but those two are extremely helpful so

during lunches or

anytime i had a break i'd be watching

some of the videos just to get familiar

and i really put my attention on just

getting familiar sometimes i've had

i had them running in the background

while i was doing something else but

the most value i got out of them is when

i actually sat down

and maybe put dedicated an hour or two

maybe in the morning

in between classes or if you work i did

some before work some

during lunches like i mentioned or even

after work um

you do a few hours each time and you

make some real progress

but um i think a lot of the times i used

to

my particular problem was i didn't want

to move to the next video until i

completely understood what was going on

here

and since i learn in different kind of

ways where sometimes i need to be

hands-on sometimes i can see it and

understand it

or sometimes i can apply it that one

example wasn't always helping me

understand it just my routine to

just get familiar with it and just

really listen not put a name on anything

or

expect to understand anything but really

just try to get some definitions down

and take a little bit out of each thing

that they were telling me

and just opening up that mindset of

things i actually became

more receiving of that information and

probably learned more than i would if i

was trying to like

really put my attention on just learning

absolutely everything the first time so

that's why i call it the icebreaker

stage because it's not meant to kind of

get anything done

um but you're supposed to get really

familiar with everything and try to

learn some definitions as much as you

can

kind of see it as like if you're getting

a sneak peek into the course content

imagine

the phases or any of the studying hasn't

started yet but you're getting a

head start or like some kind of cheat

code to where you can kind of peek and

get some information before

any of your actual training starts so

part two is where you

start doing some of the practice

questions so a lot of people

would recommend that all you need is the

practice questions and you could just go

over them over them over them until you

understand everything

that that sounded really good in theory

but it was kind of scary to me so i

didn't want to

fully rely on it especially because

you're paying money to take this exam

um so so i ended up doing some of the

questions

um there's places where you can some buy

some questions some practice questions

i'm gonna link some down below

but um i was scared that maybe they

pulled different questions out of the

501 exam

and if they're not if i'm not prepared

for them i don't even know what i'm

talking about

i'm just pretty much trying to remember

all the questions i've been answering

and try to hope that they're on the test

which i didn't feel is very safe

i never liked taking tests like that i

kind of like understanding them

and the moment i could understand them

and explain them in a few different ways

that's when i'm comfortable moving

forward so that's what i wanted to do

i used the questions but i used a

specific link called kaplan

so that's the website kaplan and they

have a course for security plus where

you

they just give you a bunch of questions

i think you get three problem sets a ton

of questions in the word bank

so it was incredible um not only that

but

they gave explanations for all the

answers so

you take the test and it gives you three

attempts different questions so which is

really amazing

um at the beginning of phase two i took

one of the tests and i remember scoring

super low

and this was expected of course because

i hadn't gone through everything yet

just learned some of the definitions

but it gave me somewhere to scale and

gauge where i was moving so

i took that test and i took it just as

if like this is the real test where

would i be what would i score

it was a chance for me to um test my

skills without actually

worrying about anything and it does cost

money it costs eighty dollars but i

think it's worth it

because it will put you ahead and it

will get you some incredible

explanations that

you really won't find with any other

practice questions and uh if you're

if you have the money to spend i

recommend spending the eighty dollars

and you'll 100 be able to grasp

everything instead of spending the 350

potentially failing and having to pay

another 350.

um get her at the first time and i think

everything here if you

if you do it right you'll be fine but so

yeah so i took the test

and what i really liked about it is that

it tells you

so if you get the answer wrong you can

go and review things it tells you why

the answer was right

but it also tells you why the wrong

answers were wrong so this really

instead of just one question giving you

an insight to one thing

it really gives you insights to four

things so

for example if a b c and d the answer

was d it tells you why it was right but

a b and c

tells you why they were wrong and where

they actually get applied to

so for every one question you're really

getting four questions worth of

information so

this is really incredible because you

get maybe about 300 in the word bank

already

and three times four that's around 1200

questions or

pieces of information you could kind of

gather

and this really helped me because um i

mean if some if you do something wrong

and someone just says no you're wrong

i mean you don't really ever know why

but if someone tells you no you're wrong

this is what's right here's why it's

right and here's why what you did was

wrong and here's why other things that

you could have done would have been

wrong as well

you go on to the next time you ever have

to do that you know exactly what you

have to do

why it was wrong and a better chance of

getting it right as opposed to if

someone just tells you

no you're wrong try again and i think

that's what i really gathered from

kaplan specifically uh that course and

um that was by far one of the things

that put me ahead maybe ten of the

questions are gonna be

um not multiple choice they're gonna be

a different range of things

but this is gonna help you get so

comfortable with the multiple choice

that

even if you get some of the the

non-multiple choice ones wrong

whether it be like some kind of course

or like run through or simulation

even if you get those wrong you're gonna

be so comfortable just doing

the uh questions alone that you have

some wiggle room and i think this is

what really helped me

um i did really well in the questions

and the multiple choice

and i think those if you could master

those that's pretty much free

once you get to the simulations you can

afford to mess up a little bit and of

course you don't want to

but those are the ones where a little

bit more unpredictable they could be

about anything so

you don't want to take too many chances

with those that's what you want to be to

your wiggle room

and if you get those wrong you want to

be more okay with that instead of

getting something that's a little bit

easier to understand like

multiple choice wrong if you're getting

multiple traits wrong you're going to

have a little bit more trouble when

you're getting to the simulations

okay for phase three phase three is

gonna help you fill all the gaps that

you might have missed

between uh looking at videos courses

or just the questions and this one's

gonna be the most simplest but it's

gonna be reading the book

um of course i told you it's going to be

you so of course the book's going to be

looking something like this

i'll put a link to where you can get the

book on amazon but when you

when you buy the book you get the actual

physical book and you also get a pdf

downloadable copy um

so that's two different ways you can

read it so if like you're studying at

home

but then you happen to be on the road

you can pick up where you left off by

picking up the pdf book

me personally i like the physical book

because you can flip back and forth

um i just like there's something about a

physical book that's just better to me

and as i'll point out later in the video

it's actually a key

to one of the final techniques for

getting this all down

but yeah so going to the physical book

it's going to give you more explanations

for the detail

and of course you get three chances with

the kaplan

test so usually when i get 50 down to

the book that's when i took

another test or i believe it might have

been 80 of the book done

i took another test to see exactly how

much i improved um and i remember

getting about like a 70 or something

like that and i know you need 85 to pass

just to feel comfortable as well so i

knew that i needed to fill in some more

information with the book

and so basically what i did was i went

from chapter one all the way to the end

and i did this by pretty much segment

segmenting some time

sometimes during work i had more of a

management job where if someone needed

paperwork done or if someone needed help

i can help them but other than that the

job was pretty much self-maintained

so i had some time to kind of study on

the side too put some hours into

that also in the morning i'd wake up a

little earlier and study really put my

attention to it

because of course i really wanted to get

this done within three months i didn't

want to take any longer with that

i felt like it was going to dedicate way

too much time and i know a lot of people

take usually six to more

two more months than that and when i

really focused down on it didn't want to

take any more than three months i had

looked at videos before

but i didn't really count that towards

the main portion of the study

all right and what i felt about this

book when you start going to the

chapters it feels like process of

elimination

you're familiar with the definitions

from phase one you understand some of

the questions from phase two so you see

them kind of coming up in the book

um so once you actually start reading

the book it's like process of

elimination

but not of wrong answers but it's

process process of elimination of

material that you never understood

before so from chapter one to

to however many chapters are i believe

there were like twenty-something um

every chapter you hit you understand it

and now it's processing process of

elimination of the unknown

chapters and the more you get through

you're going to feel like you understand

this part and the rest is unknown

once you finally get through it you're

going to see those coming up in your

test results

um so it was it's just a really good

feeling knowing that

um reading the book for the first time a

lot of the times i don't grasp as much

information but because we were familiar

with the definitions

familiar with the practice questions it

felt like it was more of a refresher

and um they were just putting more

insight more detail into each of the the

reasons why

things were right or why they worked

that way so the course content was

really a refresher and a detailed

explanation

as opposed to remember this and try to

take the test i feel like that was the

right way to do it

the last thing i did was man i think the

last 30 minutes right before the test i

was outside doing this method

but i spent a few days also doing

something called i called the index

method

so i had gone through the entire book

already and then the next thing i did

was literally sit down with the book

go through the index at the very

beginning and if i knew

what that word meant or if i could

explain it in maybe three ways

like explain what it is how to use it

and maybe a case another case where i

could use it or another way to explain

it

if i could do those three things i would

move on to the next one but if i

couldn't i would go back to the book and

reread it again that little chapter or

the little paragraph

and this wasn't anything crazy hard it

wasn't like you're reading the entire

book again

is just really filling in the gaps

because sometimes you need repetition so

for example

i'd pretty much just open up the index

once i've read through everything say

let's say i was getting stuck on

enumeration

so i'd see that it was on page 62 and i

just turned to page 62

and then try to understand it again and

at first it was freaking me out because

i was like wow

um there's a lot of these words that i

don't know but as soon as i go back and

i get familiar with them it's like well

what else can you really do but

read them again so don't get scared if

you

are finding yourself looking at needing

to look at a lot of them

it's just repetition do it as many times

as you need you have as much time in the

world as long as you

it's before you take the test so then

i'd go to enumeration

uh read this all if i still didn't

understand it for some reason and i

needed a different explanation i'd look

up a youtube video on it there's tons of

videos

on there there's tons of videos out

there on these kind of topics

but of course you don't want to go

searching one by one you want to see

what you can do from a structured

guide and then whatever you're missing

if it's not explained well

or it's not your typical style of

learning then you can outsource for it

that's when i usually go to youtube for

example if i didn't understand this

enumeration explanation

i'd go to youtube look it up if it was

too boring or i just didn't have the

mental attention

go to google whichever works for you

but i did that pretty much until i got

to the entire index

and i think that helped to fill any gaps

i had and i ended up passing the

test you needed about an 85 to pass

i want to say i got like an 89 and then

i earned this right here which was

for me incredible because before i was

so scared before i started the three

month phase

uh that i i kind of created on my own

that i kind of created on my own but

before i started three month phase i was

kind of just scared to really get into

that phase of hard studying because

i didn't know how hard it was going to

be so i was just watching videos and

just trying to

hear peak peek here and there like some

information but i never really started

um so passing that test was the most

incredible feeling and i know if you're

currently studying or if you're looking

to study or if you're in school or

looking for a job in the future i know

you're probably super stressed out about

it

your your teachers might be mentioning

it your friends your co-workers might be

mentioning it

your job descriptions might be

mentioning that you need some certain um

qualifications and since you don't have

work experience they need their projects

or certifications

so this is one way to prove just just

like a college degree

can also prove that you have some skills

this kind of shows some initiative to

also go further than that not just

through the norm

or what's expected of you so like if

you're in college and you're getting

your degree

getting a certification while you're in

college can

help show an employer that hey well he's

going for something incredible already

that we need for our job requirements

but

he's also going and taking the

initiative to go even further and

expand outwards and when you're in a job

setting

that's really the type of people they're

looking for so

they're looking people who are going to

take initiative take that learning skill

and aren't afraid to really push

themselves

so if you're already showing that and

you haven't even started a job yet

they're really going to be

they're really going to be looking

forward to maybe talking to you or

getting you an interview and then that's

from up to you to get you yourself

further once you actually get

face to face in an interview talk about

the opportunities that this

certification opened

the teachers my instructors were telling

me a lot about how

a lot of require job requirements have

this listed on there so i was like all

right let's do it

i didn't exactly know too much about it

but i wanted to get it done

and i'll tell you this much it is 100

worth it

even if you're not sure if you want to

do security i think moving in one

direction

as opposed to not moving at all is 100

the better case because it's even a

process of elimination if you decide

that you don't want to do it

a lot of people could see that as a

wasted time but i think

you're kind of narrowing down your

interest as well and it's also having an

opportunity in case you ever need it for

example

um right out of college when i graduated

and i had the certification and a few

others

i had a job offer in dallas to take a

security analyst position right now i'm

currently doing data and analytics which

is a completely different practice from

security plus

and of course i'm still interested in

security plus and i will keep learning

about both of them

i find them both really interesting but

it just goes to show that

even if it's a backup plan or it's just

another opportunity to be open it's 100

worth it

i did get an offer i just decided not to

take it cared about not receiving offers

at all

i think an employer would be more scared

of hiring someone who isn't moving at

all as opposed to someone who's at least

trying different things

and seeing what they like someone who's

open to change and open to adaptability

they're gonna like a lot more yeah um

i'm just gonna go over a little bit more

of the

phases so i'll talk about my my personal

experience

i had a lot of trouble finding a

complete guide a lot of people were

telling me oh you should try just the

practice questions just read the book

that's all you need everything is in

there which is true

but i think when people have different

styles of learning it's important to

outsource for different things and bring

it all together

i think that's why i want to put all the

links in the resources down below in the

description

i'll put a time stamps in case you need

to revisit this video

you know exactly where you left off or

where you need to go make it really easy

for you guys because

i mean my goal is really to help you

pass because i think it was super hard

and

at the end of it i realized it's just a

simple process and a simple

guidance that you have to create for

yourself and if you do that you will

pass like there's no way you won't pass

if you put your attention towards it

so it was almost like this um it was

almost this illusion of fear that i had

and once i passed it i realized

it is possible and something i kind of

thought wasn't possible for a bit

even though i was studying every day for

it i had this like imposter syndrome

slash like am i really going to pass

this test how good am i at test taking

sometimes i'm not the best

so it just showed me that it's possible

and for anybody else who might having

that same fear

or just in general i think it's natural

to be scared about something like this

where there's so much pressure for like

to get a job and stuff like that and of

course like it's a very competitive

industry

but there's also a lot of demand and i

think there's no shortage for for the

need of people who are willing to take

initiative

and get certifications and learn all the

things that you need to learn for a job

but yeah so i took a oh yeah another

thing i actually used was quizlet so a

lot of people use quizlet for studying

or

for other reasons but you can actually

look up security plus 501 quizlet

and they give you more practice

questions they give you um

let's see those little note cards where

you can flip back and forth look up

definitions

they even have some practice questions

on there so those are some free

resources if you want free resources

i highly recommend these kaplan but if

you're trying to go super low budget and

you really have confidence in yourself

you can also try the quizlet or just

maybe give yourself a little bit more

time for free

resources but if you've got the money i

highly recommend the kaplan

not just because it costs money and it's

like another resource but it genuinely

pushed me so much further but yeah so i

used quizlet in between

a lot of my studying also came while i

was working a different job

like i said it was very self-maintaining

so i didn't really have to do much work

after certain hours

so i would pretty much download quizlet

on my phone

i have uh the the pdf as well so i had

two resources i could always refer to in

case i got tired of one

i could switch to the other uh so i'd

quiz myself i'd read more

i'd go back through things i didn't

understand some of the harder chapters

so there's 20 something chapters but

there's six different sections

and one of the ones the section some of

the sections stopped me more than others

some of them i understood they were more

general some of them were very

very detailed like port numbers and

stuff like that where

you have to really memorize these things

so those kind of things i would revisit

over and over

of course humans just learned by

repetition you don't get it right the

first time it's completely normal don't

freak out

just go over it again get more familiar

once you

relieve that fear of actually doing it

then you'll be more open to receiving

the information

so just know that if you don't get it

the first time if you're not in the

state for learning it

put it down go study something else or

take a break come back

it's always going to be there even if

you need to take more than three months

that's fine

even if it's four months or five months

however much you need as long as you

secure this

uh this goal or this certification

that's all you're really looking for

um i think it can be done in three

months and even though i had a little

bit of practice

before with just watching videos they're

really just videos and you could do that

on your free time too so

um this three months is not three months

of like really just coasting

this three months is really three months

of really putting your head down in the

dirt and studying as much as possible as

many times as possible over as much

different sources as you can so

yeah i would just recommend uh really to

just push yourself as much as possible

use all the resources they're out there

i understand that they can be kind of

confusing because there's so many

different ones

but i'm going to provide links down in

the description so you have a

solid plan a guide and i'll put the

time stamps as well so i hope you guys

pass the exam if you're looking to it

uh if you're looking to take it soon or

in the future or if you're looking for

cyber security jobs or if you're

interested in cyber security

i hope uh whatever goal it is that you

have involving cyber security or this

test i hope you reach them all the

resources are out there a lot of the

times it's us

being in our own way and we need to just

get out of our heads before we can

actually go any further

so i just finished up with all the notes

i was taking that way i can

make sure i didn't miss anything but if

i didn't miss anything just leave it in

the comments i'll be happy to explain

more or

answer any questions if i know the

answer or maybe point you to a resource

or a link

but yeah i hope you guys passed the test

and if you do pass the test leave it in

the comments that'd be super awesome to

see even if

one person passed the test because of

this or because of the resources i

pointed to

that'd be incredible to hear and i

really would love to hear it so if

you're looking forward to taking the

test or anything

put in the comments so that way i can

see um it'd be really awesome

but yeah until next time i will see you

guys later peace