Hey Calla,
I have typically recommended that exam candidates get 80-85% on a practice test with a fresh bank of questions, before attempting the exam. Here are a few other things to keep in mind:
1- The score on the practice exam is based on a fresh set of questions
- This is to ensure that you can "hold your own" when it comes to questions you have never seen before. This mimics the real exam and gives you the closes experience to what you will face.
2- Focus on the areas/domains that you are weakest in, but also have the highest weight on the exam.
- This will optimize your time, it is more beneficial to work on domains that for example have 25% coverage on the real exam then to try and bring the score up on a domain that has 10% weight on the exam.
3- When you are tackling an objective that you are weak on, focus only on that area for a couple of days.
- With the A+ domains being so broad in the topics required to pass the exam, it can be a bit overwhelming. So focus on just a single domain (which honestly, can be a bit much too!)
4- After you have studied a few days or a week or so, then resit another practice test with a new bank of questions.
- This helps to isolate weak areas and bring those area's scores up to the 80-85% level. Remember that you might see another domain or two reduce in score, but this is OK. Here is why, if you see an improvement on the area that you spent time working on and this in the ONLY improvement then the practice test is doing its job: Making you study more .....lol and increasing your knowledge in your weak areas
5- How do you tell when you are ready? You might already be ready.
- You will never feel ready, that is just a fact! The only thing you can do is to make every effort you can with all the platforms, books, notes, labs that you have at your disposal
These are a few of the things that I have told exam candidates, students and members throughout the years. When applied properly, the candidate increases their chance at a successful pass on the exam. However there are other factors that have to be considered, like testing anxiety, not reading the questions correctly, overlooking keywords, not answering questions, incomplete answers. Pay attention closely to the questions and understand what they are asking. I hope this helps!
Please keep the great questions coming @Calla-Neil as they so beneficial to all of our members that will be following in your footsteps!!!
