Just (barely) passed my Server+ Exam

The exam itself was pretty straightforward. Check into the testing center, sign in, sit down, and go through the questions. The problem I ran into was that the PBQ's were cut off and half the screen was missing, so I could not complete them, which made me nervous the rest of the exam, wondering how weighted their points were. I flagged them for review and skipped them, but even at the end they continued to be cut off.

The exam proctor came in to try and fix it, but she couldn't figure it out, and the CompTIA rep she called stated it was a known issue and to just do the best I could. So needles to say I did not receive those points. The proctor stated I might be credited some leniency if I was off by a few points at the end due to the flaw in the testing software, but thankfully I passed with a 752/750. Woof.

I did use up most of my time, as many of the questions were worded in a way where I had to read and understand a scenario, many I had to read two or three times to fully understand the angle the exam was going for. It wasn't as simple as terminology or official questions with clear answers. Quite a few questions had more than one answer, but the goal was to determine which answer was the "best" given the scenario, so I had to take a step back and really think.

Thankfully I did not have too many Linux questions, as I have heard others did end up with. A lot of RAID and file permission questions, hardware questions, licensing questions, backup types, questions on virtual machines and some port scenarios. Nothing too crazy - but several questions I did not know the terms or the correct answer between two likely options, so be prepared to know the difference between things like incremental and differential backups and different RAID scenarios.

I have 10+ years of IT support experience, so I didn't study as much as someone would need going into this fresh, probably spent 12 hours of studying and practice exams after watching a 12 hour video series going over the topics. A lot of this was review from what I already knew from A+ and Nework+, combined with day to day IT work exposure. Given more time I could have probably really improved my score so I wasn't on the edge of passing. That, and if the PBQ's were to fit on the screen.