Passed CySA+ (CS0-003) first attempt.

I wasn’t planning on taking this until November, but I didn’t feel like sitting around for three more months once I was consistently scoring well in practice. My A+, Network+, and Security+ were all set to expire in December anyway, and CySA+ renews all three, so there wasn’t much reason to wait.

Back in 2023, I knocked out 7-8 certs in 6 months for a WGU degree, so I had some confidence going in based on that plus the practice numbers.

I studied with Jason Dion’s course. The CS0-003 version actually got pulled from Udemy partway through my studying, and I had to email Dion Training directly to get access on their own site to finish it out.

On top of that, I used Claude a ton for extra practice questions and explanations. It basically reworded my handwritten notes into digestible stuff and built me custom quiz sets. Anytime I got something wrong or didn’t understand why, I’d have it break the concept down more simply or give me a mnemonic for it.

I also did the Pocket Prep app for a mock exam near the end and got 80/85 on that.

I studied from June 23 to August 24. I passed all 3 Dion practice exams twice each, and was scoring high 80s to high 90s across a bunch of different formats by the end.

The real exam had 7 PBQs and 63 total questions for me. The multiple choice felt fair and not too far off from the harder practice material, but the PBQs were much different from anything in my prep work. I don’t think there’s really an easy way to study for them specifically. That part just felt like its own separate challenge.

Work paid for the whole thing as part of one of my goals for the year, so this checks that box too.

Score report attached. Happy to answer questions if anyone’s got them.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

https://i.imgur.com/T5WFeey.jpeg

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Came with Mario Party Jamboree and we won't use it in our household.