u/AshIsRightHere

To study, all I did was watch Professor Messer's A+ Core 1 & Core 2 videos on YouTube (With details notes), and then verified my readiness using Messer's practice exams.

The only other certification exam I've done was the ISC2 CC with the free voucher, so this is the first one where I had to pay for the exam myself, which made me pretty anxious going in cause I didn't wanna spend all that money for nothing.

I was completely lost on the first two PBQs, and it honestly had me reconsidering how much I understood. But it was less of me not knowing the content and more that the questions themselves just didn't make any sense, no matter how many times I read it over again. One of them felt like it didn't include enough information to effectively answer the question.

After getting passed the PBQs though, I cruised right through. I was already familiar with a lot of these concepts, but I also watched the entirety of the Core 1 videos on Professor Messer's channel with detailed notes, and also purchased his practice exam.

Took me the full 90 minutes including time to review each question.

Edit: I forgot to mention: before I purchased Professor Messer's practice exam I was using the free practice questions from ExamCompass. They give you a lot of content and the questions are fine for being free, but there's no PBQs. Professor Messer's practice questions seemed to be a lot closer to what was on the actual exam, so if you are willing to buy his I would definitely do it.