The Exam Situation

When you arrive at the testing center where you scheduled your exam, you will need to sign in with an exam proctor. He or she will ask you to show two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID. After you have signed in, you will be asked to deposit any books, bags, or other items you brought with you. Then you'll be escorted into the closed room that houses the exam seats.

All exams are completely closed book. In fact, you won't be permitted to take anything with you into the testing area. You will be furnished with a pen or pencil and a blank sheet of paperor, in some cases, an erasable plastic sheet and an erasable felt-tip pen. You are allowed to write down any information you want on both sides of this sheet. It would be a good idea to memorize as much of the material that appears on the Cram Sheet (inside the front cover of this book) as you can, so you can write that information on the blank sheet as soon as you are seated in front of the computer. At the beginning of each test is a tutorial you can go through if you are unfamiliar with the testing environment. This tutorial time can also be used to write additional information on your sheet. You can refer to the note sheet anytime you like during the test, but you will have to turn in the sheet when you leave the room.

Typically, the room will be furnished with anywhere from one to half a dozen computers, and each workstation will be separated from the others by dividers designed to keep you from seeing what is happening on someone else's computer.

Most test rooms feature a wall with a large picture window. This permits the exam proctor to monitor the room, to prevent exam takers from talking to one another, and to observe anything out of the ordinary that might go on. The exam proctor will have preloaded the appropriate CompTIA certification examfor this book, that's the Security+ Certification Examand you'll be permitted to start as soon as you are seated in front of the computer.

All CompTIA certification exams allow a predetermined maximum amount of time in which to complete your work (this time is indicated on the exam by an onscreen counter/clock in the upper-right corner of the screen, so you can check the time remaining whenever you like). All exams are computer generated and use a multiple-choice format. The Security+ exam consists of 100 randomly selected questions from a pool of several hundred questions. You may take up to 90 minutes to complete the exam.

Although this might sound quite simple, the questions are formulated to thoroughly check your mastery of the material. Often, you will be asked to give more than one answer to a question. Likewise, you might be asked to select the best or most effective solution to a problem from a range of choices, all of which technically are correct. Taking the exam is quite an adventure, and it involves real thinking as well as skill and managing your time. This book shows you what to expect and how to deal with the potential problems, puzzles, and predicaments you are likely to encounter.

When you complete a CompTIA certification exam, the software will tell you whether you have passed or failed. Results are broken into several topic or domain areas. Even if you fail, you should ask for, and keep, the detailed report the test proctor prints for you. You can use this report to help you prepare for another go-round, if needed. If you need to retake an exam, you will have to schedule a new test with Prometric or VUE and pay for another exam. (The amount of the retake exam is determined by what you paid for the original exam.) Keep in mind that because the questions come from a pool, you will receive different questions the second time around. CompTIA also has a retake policy, which can be found on its Web site.

In the following section, you will learn more about how CompTIA test questions look and how they must be answered .