Linux+ XK0-004 Crash and burn

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I watched the 22+ hours of material for CompTIA Linux+ and was feeling pretty good about the material. I had been watching with the intention of going for the certification so it was not a casual watch for me. I turned around and took the practice exam from Kaplan and lost all comfort in my progress. I felt most of the malarial in the exam was not covered and found myself blindly guessing often. I scored a whopping 60% and I only feel I did that well thanks to some prior knowledge.

Honestly, it really has me questioning my choice in educational material here. Could I have the wrong expectation of consuming enough knowledge to take these exams from this site? Perhaps it's meant to be more entertainment than education and I should not expect to find all that I need here? Maybe it's on me and I'm not exploring all the material, perhaps there's more reading somewhere beyond the show notes?

Rather than cancel my subscription I'm hoping I can be pointed towards my mistake because I do enjoy the material but it comes down to it I need the certs more than I need to be entertained and I'm happy to have someone point out my stupid mistake rather than assume it's incomplete material.

Appreciate the read.

Is this your only study material?

I just finished the Certmaster Learn Linux+ course last week (took me a month and a half to get through it) and ive also been watching this course as well. This is a good course and it really helps me to see the material, actually having a course like the Linux+ learn in addition to this course is my preference. Of course these videos arent as indepth as the certmaster learn course. If it was then the episodes would be 2 hours each.

I suggest you get the Certmaster Learn platform. Its pricey but its worth it. There is so much information in that course.

I really didnt know anything about Linux prior to starting that course. I work in IT but I dont deal with Linux. After you finish all the lessons there is a final timed assessment test which simulates the actual exam and I actually got 70%. Pretty good for knowing hardly anything about linux just shortly before.

I credit both that Linux+ learn and this video series with getting me this far. Now I just need to shore where I fell short.

Of course, I also must add that there are some areas Im still lacking in, such as bash scripting. I think that is where a good Linux+ book will come into play.

@Chris-Standley said in Linux+ XK0-004 Crash and burn:

Certmaster Learn Linux+

This was my only study material so I suppose I should be satisfied with 60% out of the gate. You weren't kidding about Certmaster being pricey, $479 just for a study materials for one cert is out of my reach. Honestly I had the expectation there was enough information here at itPro to be able to study for and pass the exams.

I'm sorry to hear that you weren't successful on the practice exam. There are usually two possible causes why someone does not pass an exam.

The first possible cause is that you didn't study effectively. Reading and listening to material is different than comprehending and retaining material. You've probably heard that before, and you took the effort to post here for help, so I'm going to assume that you studied an adequate amount and that is not the problem. Often times, the Kaplan exam is harder than the real exam. They do that to encourage you to really understand the topics and to do further research. At the end of the exam you should have had a chance to review your right/wrong answers and identify areas where you need to study more.

The second possible cause is that topics showed up on the practice test that weren't covered in our course. I designed the course to be objective complete and (as far as I am aware) it covers all of the topics that show up on the actual exam. I've personally taken each version of the exam so I know that the course covers every question I have seen, but the question pool is pretty big and there are new topics added from time to time. Would you mind sharing some of topics that popped up in the practice exam that you weren't able to answer?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post Mr. Pezet. I did very much enjoy your lectures and felt the information was delivered very well so please don't see this as a negative review of your work. Hearing Kaplan makes the practice exams harder than the actual does make me feel a bit better.

I tried to go back and review the questions I answered incorrectly today but it would appear they are no longer available for review. I can recall some questions around virtual hard drive provisioning, thin vs thick and a VMware specific option I didn't recall being discussed.

ATM all I can review is my scores in each area. Apparently I'm scoring around 80% in Troubleshooting and Diagnostics but the rest are pretty even at 60%. If I'm hearing you correctly I should retake the practice exam and record anything I believe is not covered in the course material as well as re-watch the course. Other than the show notes and transcripts is there any other written material I could be missing?

Michael,

I can't speak to the Linux+ as I haven't attempted and am not working on it yet. But don't worry about bombing a Kaplan test. I've tested after getting a 60% on a Kaplan test before and passed a certification exam. Kaplan does a good job of reinforcing knowledge but in my opinion your scores should be taken with a grain of salt. I've found with ITProTV that if you are using videos and taking notes then studying the notes, plus labbing regularly and labbing again close to test day as well as using the Kaplan tests and really exploring where you got wrong answers and why (this where the hyperlinks in the answer explanations come in) you should come out okay on the exam.

Also if you aren't sure just know that sometimes you have to take the certification exam and find out where you are at if you aren't sure. You can buy the exam voucher with a retake for not too terrible much more money and that gives you that trial run at the real test.

Keep your head up. What you have will allow you to pass it I'm quite certain. You just really need to use the analytics built-in to Kaplan to find your weak areas and concentrate more study time to those areas more than anything.

I just passed the Linux+ last month. I scored on Kaplan something around 50-60% the first time and more after that.
I was watching it here and also at Linda.com "Cert Prep: CompTIA Linux+ (XKO-004)" by Grant McWilliams. The local library covers Linda.com, so I got it for free. Grant McWilliams gives hands-on approach. The first few lessons were about setting up the lab, and then I repeated everything after him in the VM.
On ITPROTV, I got a better understanding of the whole concepts, and why we are doing something the way we do. It allowed me to see a bigger picture.
These two courses complement each other and have a different approach.
I would suggest Mr. Pezet gives students more exercises to do, if not during the lecture, but at least in the lecture notes.

I would strongly recommend reading a Linux+ certification book in addition to watching ITPRO.TV. Just watching ITPRO.TV is like going to class without doing the homework. A book can cover the material in much more depth than video.

Mr. Parsons, I did graduate a 4 year University on the Deans list just attending class, stopped buying the books freshman year. Beyond that, the impression I get from ITPRO sales pitch for the upgraded membership is all material one should need to pass the exam is available here.

The wife and I are expecting any day now but as soon as the dust settles from that I believe I'll take Mr. Evans advice and take my first crack at the exam. Lets hope this kid likes watching ITPRO for the first couple weeks of it's life while I review.

Thanks everyone for your two cents, I feel much better about my choice to exam prep here and the practice scores I had out of the gate. All of your thoughts were of value to me.

@Michael-Butler said in Linux+ XK0-004 Crash and burn:

Mr. Parsons, I did graduate a 4 year University on the Deans list just attending class, stopped buying the books freshman year. Beyond that, the impression I get from ITPRO sales pitch for the upgraded membership is all material one should need to pass the exam is available here.

The wife and I are expecting any day now but as soon as the dust settles from that I believe I'll take Mr. Evans advice and take my first crack at the exam. Lets hope this kid likes watching ITPRO for the first couple weeks of it's life while I review.

Thanks everyone for your two cents, I feel much better about my choice to exam prep here and the practice scores I had out of the gate. All of your thoughts were of value to me.

Best of luck to you. Ive got a 13 month old boy. our only child.

What I did was take that stimulus the gov gave us for the virus and bought my study materials with it. There is another stimulus coming soon, maybe you can do the same?

One more suggestionI also have the Comptia certmaster practice. Its basically practice tests. All domains of the exam are covered. What has helped me is while going through the tests, when I get an answer wrong I write down the question and answer. I find this helps me retain the information. I will also try out the different commands on my VM i have running. The explanations for the answers are very well written.

I swear, im not a shill for comptia. They material is just really good, imo. I wish I had material this good when I was studying for my CCNA.

Also, if you buy their comptia store club membership for $50 , you'll save 20% on all purchases. It pays for itself.

Thanks to everyone i look at these and help me because i felt i was the only one that bomb the practice test.... I do agree that they need more hands on exercises or follow a longs tutorials, because some of the stuff they went over i do not have. I am still giving ITPRO TV a shot before i consider another learning platform.

@Michael-Butler said in Linux+ XK0-004 Crash and burn:

The wife and I are expecting any day now but as soon as the dust settles from that I believe I'll take Mr. Evans advice and take my first crack at the exam. Lets hope this kid likes watching ITPRO for the first couple weeks of it's life while I review.

Thanks everyone for your two cents, I feel much better about my choice to exam prep here and the practice scores I had out of the gate. All of your thoughts were of value to me.

Congrats! Just reading this thread and wondering if you ever took the Linux+ exam?

I feel your struggle. I've been studying here as well as with the Linux Foundation. I've been pouring through every Linux course on this site, and found it to be much easier to absorb information here. I think I've watched something on the order of 50+ hours of content here, used labs, supplemented with some YouTube content, LCFS content from the Linux Foundation... Even still, my performance drilling on the flashcards provided on this site is only around 20% give or take. Honestly, I think this stuff is just HARD to learn. It's no cakewalk, that's for darn sure. I don't have an IT background, so I'm guessing someone who does might pick it up more quickly than me.