Study and Exam Preparation Tips

These study and exam preparation tips provide some general guidelines to help you prepare for the Network+ exam. The information here is organized into three sections. The first section helps you examine how you learn. The second section addresses pre-exam preparation activities and covers general study tips. The third section contains some tips and hints for the actual test-taking situation.

Learning as a Process

To understand the nature of preparation for the exams, it is important to understand learning as a process. You are probably aware of how you best learn new material. You might find that outlining works best for you, or you might be a visual learner who needs to see examples of the concepts discussed. Whatever your learning style, test preparation takes place over time. You cannot start studying for the Network+ exam the night before you take it. It is important to understand that learning is a developmental process, and as part of that process, you need to focus on what you know and what you have yet to learn.

Learning takes place when we match new information to old. You have some previous experience with computers, and now you are preparing for the Network+ exam. Using this book and its accompanying CD-ROM will not just add incrementally to what you know; as you study, you will actually change the organization of your knowledge as you integrate this new information into your existing knowledge base. This will lead you to a more comprehensive understanding of the tasks and concepts outlined in the CompTIA objectives and of computing in general. Again, this happens as a repetitive process rather than as a singular event. If you keep this model of learning in mind as you prepare for the exam, you will make the best decisions concerning what to study and how much more studying you need to do.

Study Tips

There are many ways to approach studying, just as there are many types of material to study. The following tips, however, should work well for the type of material covered on the Network+ exam.

Study Strategies

Although individuals vary in the ways they learn, some basic principles apply to everyone. Adopt study strategies that take advantage of these principles. One of these principles is that learning can be broken into various depths. Recognition (of terms, for example) exemplifies a surface level of learning in which you rely on a prompt of some sort to elicit recall. Comprehension or understanding (of the concepts behind the terms, for example) represents a deeper level of learning. The ability to analyze a concept and apply your understanding of it in a new way represents an even deeper level of learning.

Your learning strategy should enable you to know the material at a level or two deeper than mere recognition. This will help you do well on the exam. You will know the material so thoroughly that you can easily handle the recognition-level types of questions used in multiple-choice testing. You will also be able to apply your knowledge to solve new problems.

Macro and Micro Study Strategies

One strategy that can lead to this deeper learning includes preparing an outline that covers all the objectives for the exam. You should delve a bit further into the material and include a level or two of detail beyond the stated objectives for the exam. Then you should expand the outline by coming up with a statement of definition or a summary for each point in the outline.

An outline provides two approaches to studying. First, you can study the outline by focusing on the organization of the material. You can work your way through the points and subpoints of your outline, with the goal of learning how they relate to one another. Make sure, for example, that you understand how each of the main objective areas is similar to and different from the others.

Next, you can work through the outline, focusing on learning the details. Memorize and understand terms and their definitions, facts, rules and strategies, advantages and disadvantages, and so on. In this pass through the outline, you should attempt to learn detail rather than the big picture (the organizational information that you worked on in the first pass through the outline).

Research has shown that attempting to assimilate both overall and detail types of information at the same time can interfere with the overall learning process. To best perform on the exam, separate your studying into these two approaches.

Active Study Strategies

Develop and actually exercise an active study strategy. Write down and define objectives, terms, facts, and definitions. In human information-processing terms, writing forces you to engage in more active encoding of the information. Just reading over the information exemplifies passive processing.

Next, determine whether you can apply the information you have learned by attempting to create examples and scenarios on your own: Think about how or where you could apply the concepts you are learning. Again, write down this information to process the facts and concepts more actively.

Common Sense Strategies

Finally, follow common sense practices when studying. Study when you are alert, reduce or eliminate distractions, take breaks when you become fatigued, and so on.

Pretesting Yourself

Pretesting enables you to assess how well you are learning. The Exam Prep includes questions both in the book and on the accompanying CD. While pretesting, take the time to go through all the questions in the book. It can be helpful to have someone ask you the questions and you answer them out loud. This helps identify any laps in your knowledge.

In addition to the numerous questions in the book, the practice exams on the included CD are also an important part of the pretest process. The MeasureUp software on the CD-ROM provides a variety of ways to test yourself before you take the actual exam. By using the practice exam, you can take an entire timed, practice test similar in nature to the actual Network+ exam. The MeasureUp software offers three test modes:

• Study Mode—Study Mode allows you to request the correct answer(s) and explanation for each question during the test. These tests are not timed. You can modify the testing environment during the test by clicking the Options button.

• Certification Mode—Certification Mode closely simulates the actual testing environment you will encounter when taking a certification exam. These tests do not allow you to request the answer(s) or explanation for each question until after the exam.

• Custom Mode—Custom Mode allows you to specify your preferred testing environment. Use this mode to specify the objectives you want to include in your test, the timer length, and other test properties. You can also modify the testing environment during the test by clicking the Options button.

Set a goal for your pretesting score. A reasonable goal would be to score consistently in the 90% range.

See Appendix A, “What’s on the CD-ROM,” for a more detailed explanation of the test engine.

Exam Prep Tips

The Network+ certification exam is a standardized, computerized, fixed-form exam that reflects the knowledge domains established by CompTIA.

The original fixed-form, computerized exam is based on a fixed set of exam questions. The individual questions are presented in random order during a test session. If you take the same exam more than once, you will see the same number of questions, but you won’t necessarily see the same questions. This is because many forms are typically assembled for such exams.

The final forms of a fixed-form exam are identical in terms of content coverage, number of questions, and allotted time, but the questions differ. You might notice, however, that some of the same questions appear on, or are shared among, different final forms. When questions are shared among multiple final forms of an exam, the percentage of sharing is generally small. Many final forms share no questions, but some older exams might have a 10% to 15% duplication of exam questions on the final exam forms.

Fixed-form exams also have a fixed time limit in which you must complete the exam. The MeasureUp test engine on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book provides fixed-form exams.

Finally, the score you achieve on a fixed-form exam is based on the number of questions you answer correctly. The exam’s passing score is the same for all final forms of a given fixed-form exam.

Table 1 shows the format for the exam.

Table 1 Time, Number of Questions, and Passing Score for the Network+ Exam

Remember that you should not dwell on any one question for too long; the exam time can be consumed very quickly. However, the test does allow you to mark questions for later review. If you have time at the end of the exam, you can go back and review the questions that you were unsure about. Often a later question will help trigger an answer to a previous one. Many people find that there is plenty of time to go back and review, so instead of skipping a question, do your best to answer, and then return to it later should you have the time.

Given all these pieces of information, the task now is to assemble a set of tips that will help you successfully tackle the Network+ certification exam.

More Exam Prep Tips

Tips for exam preparation include the following:

• Become familiar with networking terms and concepts. Hands-on experience is one of the keys to success. Review the exercises throughout this book.

• Review the current sample questions and test information on the CompTIA website.

• Memorize foundational technical detail, but remember that you need to be able to think your way through questions as well.

• Take any of the available practice tests, including the end-of-chapter quizzes and practice exam within this book and the practice exams on the CD-ROM.

• Look at the CompTIA website for samples and demonstration items.

Tips for During the Exam Session

Apply the following exam-taking advice when taking the Network+ exam:

• Take a deep breath and try to relax when you first sit down for the exam session. It is important to control the stress you might (naturally) feel when taking exams.

• You will be provided scratch paper. Take a moment to write down on this paper any factual information and technical detail that you committed to short-term memory.

• Carefully read all information and instruction screens. These displays have been put together to give you information relevant to the exam you are taking.

• Read the exam questions carefully. Reread each question to identify all relevant details.

• Tackle the questions in the order in which they are presented. Come back to ones you are unsure about if you have the time at the end of the exam.

• Do not rush, but also do not linger on difficult questions. The questions vary in degree of difficulty. Don’t let yourself be flustered by a particularly difficult or verbose question.

• Note the time allotted and the number of questions appearing on the exam you are taking. Make a rough calculation of how many minutes you can spend on each question, and use this information to pace yourself through the exam.

• Take advantage of the fact that you can return to and review skipped or previously answered questions. Record the questions you cannot answer confidently, noting the relative difficulty of each question, on the scratch paper provided. After you have made it to the end of the exam, return to the troublesome questions.

• If session time remains after you have completed all questions (and if you aren’t too fatigued), review your answers. Pay particular attention to questions that seem to have a lot of detail or that involve graphics.

• As for changing your answers, the general rule is: don’t! If you read a question carefully and completely and you thought you knew the right answer, you probably did. Do not second-guess yourself. If, as you check your answers, one clearly stands out as being incorrectly marked, of course you should change it. If you are at all unsure, however, go with your first impression.

If you have done your studying, know the material, and follow the preceding suggestions, you should do well. Good luck!