Step by step Guide to study for ANY IT Certification exam.
This post is a complete step-by-step guide on how to study and pass ANY IT certification exam. A+, Security +, MSCA, CCNA.. It doesn’t matter. If you follow this process from start to finish, you can be SURE you are ready to take your exam.
I’ve taken and passed many cert exams, and I use this process every time… and it works.
Beginner Mistakes
So, you are studying for an IT certification exam ay?
Maybe you bought a thick textbook type book off Amazon that had great reviews; you probably have been watching a video s
eries as well; heck, I bet you even checked the app store on your phone for some practice questions… I know because we all do it.
And sure.. It’s always a good idea to get more than one study resource, but if you were like me.. You would find yourself jumping around to all your different study sources whenever you got bored..
Next thing you know, three months have gone by, and you aren’t even through half of the exam objectives, you feel overwhelmed with all the information and want to give up.
DON’T GIVE UP! All you need is a road map on how to get from where you are now, to READY TO TAKE THE TEST.
So without further ado..
Things you need to get before you start
You really don’t need much, in fact, depending on the exam you are taking, you may be able to do this for free.
*** hint, I passed all my Comptia exams using ONLY Professor Messer’s free videos.
- Locate the exam objectives. Every IT certification has a set of objectives that lists out all the main topics as well as the associated sub-topics.
You won’t use this to study, but rather as a guide to know that you are studying everything that will be on the exam.
- Find a good video series, video course.. whatever you want to call it that covers allll the exam objectives.
This will be your MAIN study source.
- Buy a certification Study book (Optional) .. Get the e-book version if possible, I’ll tell you why later.
A lot of people use these cert books as their main study source. Not in this guide you wont.
- Find reputable practice exams/questions.
My personal favorite is Boson.. I’ve used them for multiple cert exams, and their practice exams are always so close to the actual test, if not, even a little harder which is good. But the choice is up to you, find good practice questions.. And a LOT of them.
The step-by-step Guide
Let’s cut to the chase, here is what you need to do…
Step 1. Watch the entire video series one time without taking notes.
You know that video course I told you to get?
Watch the entire video course all the way through ONE time just to get yourself familiar with the material. DO NOT take any notes yet. If there are labs, just watch them, don’t do them.
You probably won’t understand the majority of what they are talking about, but that’s OK!
Doing this may seem like a waste of time, but trust me it isn’t.
Going through the entire series from start to finish is essentially a crash course on EVERYTHING that will be covered in the exam, and even though you aren’t taking notes or studying the material yet, you will be surprised what you remember and topics that build on other topics will start to come together.
Step 2. Watch the video series again, this time taking notes.
**** THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE
Once you have finished the video series the first time, WATCH IT AGAIN.
Yes that’s right, watch the whole darn thing AGAIN, this time taking notes…
And I don’t mean those half-assed notes that you would pretend to take in college. I mean notes with a purpose, and that purpose will be flashcards later on…
Make your notes in FLASHCARD FORM… Now, you are not ACTUALLY making flashcards yet, you are making notes on either Microsoft word, notepad, or my personal favorite Evernote. And later on you will turn these notes into actual flashcards.
What does that mean exactly?
It means, something you need to ask, and something you need to answer.
Very important, that when you write your flashcard notes, you need to put it in your OWN WORDS, in a way that makes sense to you. This will tremendously help you remember the topics.
Here’s a few examples that I made when I was studying for my CCNA
As you can see, this is in FLASHCARD FORM, in my own words.
The First dot is the “question”, the next indented dots are “the answer”
I even put a cool little picture that made sense to me.
*** This part includes doing the labs if your exam has them. Follow along and complete the labs.. Doing so you are bound to find commands, and methodologies you will need to know… Write these down in your OWN words in flashcard form like we discussed above.
Step 3. Use different study source for only topics you struggle with.
You will come across topics or concepts that you just can’t seem to grasp from the video series and labs, and that’s OK!
It doesn’t make sense to try and create a flashcard note on something you don’t understand…
So when you come across this problem, you need to research this topic, question, or concept from a DIFFERENT source until YOU can put it into your OWN words and have it make sense TO YOU.
At this point I usually will use the certification book…
Cert books are jam packed with tons of in-depth information, usually way more than you need to pass the exam.. Which is why I never use the Book for my main study source, that and reading makes me sleepy..
I will use the book only for additional information on a topic I don’t understand…
EBooks are handy because you can do a “ctrl + f” (find) and type in the keyword to find all the spots where they discuss what you are looking for.
Once you find the topic, read through it and see if it makes more sense to you coming from a different source.
If you don’t have a book, just searching your topic on YouTube works as well.
***TIP for exams with labs.
If your exam has labs, follow along and do the lab exactly the way the instructor is doing it.
Then make your own lab using the same concepts, BUT change it by making YOUR stuff. Whether that means, changing the IP scheme, changing router ID’s, changing hostnames.. whatever. Just make it YOURS.
And do it without instructions.. The times that you need to refer to your notes or the video for direction is when you need to make a new flashcard note.
Step 4. Turn your notes into flashcards
By this point you have completed the video series a second time and you should have a TON of flashcard notes. (If you don’t you are either a genius or did something wrong)
At this point you will take all your notes that are in flashcard form.. and actually TURN THEM INTO REAL FLASHCARDS…
This part may seem tedious, but just the process of making the flashcards helps you memorize them.
You can make actual physical flashcards, or my personal favorite is Anki.. it’s a free flashcard software that you can download, web version, or app version so you can take your studies on the go. I prefer Anki because I can copy and paste pictures that were in my notes.
Step 5. Study your flashcards
STUDY!
Study all your flash cards until you have gone through the ENTIRE deck and know them all. This will probably take you a few days, maybe even a week or so depending on how many cards you have.
*** Anki is great because it gives you the ability to tell it how comfortable you are with a flashcard so that Anki knows whether to keep showing you the card again or not.
Step 6. Take practice tests
Once you have finished ALL your flashcards, you should have a solid grasp on ALL the information in the exam… BUT you aren’t ready to take the exam just yet…. 
You may have a good grasp on the information, but you are not practiced on taking tests.
At this point you need to do practice questions and take practice tests… Depending on the certification you are studying for, you can find good practice questions online for free, or there are good paid ones such as Boson as I mentioned above. The choice is up to you.
As you are going through your practice test/questions, you will find questions and topics that you are not strong on.. A good practice test will include explanations as to why you got the question wrong, and why the correct answer is correct.
Again, take this question and answer that you struggle with and put it in your notes in FLASHCARD FORM.. If the explanation has good information that you should know, you can take that info and also put it in your notes as well.
Continue doing this for the entire practice test series.
Step 7. Study practice test flashcards
At this point you should have created a good amount more of notes for flashcards.. Convert these notes to flashcards, and study JUST these flashcards until you got them all correct.
Step 8. Study entire deck of flashcards again
Now study your entire deck of flash cards until you get them all right.
This is important because you may have forgotten some of the information in your flashcards having been focused on practice tests. The knowledge will come back quickly.
Step 9. Schedule your exam.
Schedule your exam for 1 week out!
It’s important to schedule it for one week out. You may not feel completely ready just yet, but having this date set in stone will put your mind in test taking mode.
Step 10. More practice tests
At this point you should be just about ready for your exam… In the week before your test, I usually focus heavily on practice questions. (If you exam has labs, make sure you practice questions that also have labs).
You should be getting at least 80% correct on your practice questions correct at this time. The ones you don’t get correct.. Find out why, and make them into flashcards.
Step 11. Review flashcards again
In the last couple days before your exam, review your deck of flash cards AGAIN.. You should be able to get through them pretty quickly now.
A lot of people say, “Don’t study the day/ night before your exam!”.. And maybe there is science behind that, maybe there isn’t.. But if you’re like me, the day before your exam all you can think about is the damn exam anyway, so might as well study..
At this point I only study TWO things
1. The topics that I struggle with the most, I’ll review my flash cards on those topics.
2. The pain in the butt memorization things.. the things that I know I will forget the moment I pass the exam.
Step 12. Take the EXAM and pass it!
If you followed all these steps exactly as listed above, you are WITHOUT A DOUBT ready to take your IT cert exam and pass it.
There is no better feeling than completing your exam, and pressing that “Finished” button and seeing a passing score, knowing that all your hard work paid off.
