IT Certification Exam Preparation Guide

Matthew George | Wednesday, March 27, 2019

IT Certification Exam Preparation Guide

Are you looking to gain an edge over your IT peers?

Certifications continue to be a proven way to gain valuable IT skills. IT certifications showcase your interest and know-how in a particular topic or technology to help you climb up the success ladder. IT Skills and Certifications can give you a raise in salary, make you stand out from the competition, and get you a promotion in your current job role. The bottom line is that holding an IT certification directly impacts how much money you make. Many first-time IT certification seekers feel stressed about how to acquire these IT certification credentials.

IT professional looking at preparation guide

Over the last couple of months, many of our students have raised questions like “How can I prepare for an IT certification exam?” or “What are the tips and tricks to get ready for any IT certification exam?” Earning IT certification credentials has never been an easy task.

There is no single path for an answer on certification exam preparation success. Each student could be a different style of learner – audial learners, visual learners, and tactile learners. Drawing on the insights and experiences from ExitCertified training experts, we would like to share with you a brief guide on the tips and tricks to prepare for any IT certification exam. This will get you on the right path for certification success, with the necessary and required information to pass that IT certification.

We all know that Information Technology is a constantly changing field. As the industry grows and evolves, there are new certifications that crop up. Anyone can easily get confused about how and where to begin, with the sheer number of vendor-authorized certifications, certification learning paths, and specializations. The first thing that you should do before you read these certification exam tips and tricks is to take a look at authorized certification courses and decide which certification path you would like to take.

View ExitCertified Certification training pages for AWSIBMVMwareRed HatMicrosoftSpring, and ForgeRock.

Certification Exam Preparation Tips and Tricks

Do Your Homework

The majority of IT certifications are technical and therefore not always fun to take. Some certification exams can trick learners into asking questions in a way that even people with years of experience can’t answer. Even though you cannot know what questions you will be asked in your certification exam, certification preparation training will identify the key topics that could appear in the exam. It's worth remembering that IT certification providers want you to succeed, and that is why most of the certification providers are transparent with the exam topics (just not the questions).

Any IT certification exam you plan to pursue has an official exam page that gives you all the required information about the certification. Each official certification exam page includes -the format of the certification exam, topics you will be tested on, pre-requisites to take the certification exam, available study material, and any other valuable resources that can help you prepare for the exam. These details are of great help when preparing for the exam as the phrasing on these official exam pages can provide candidates some hint on how the questions would be positioned in the exam.

Start reading books about the topic

Reading is just the perfect way to prepare for any IT certification exam and one of the most economical methods of preparation. For the certification that you plan to take, find out which is the best examination preparation book from peers who have already earned the certification credentials. Read the book cover-to-cover and research in detail on the topics you are not familiar with. If you feel that the book you choose is not good enough and organized properly, choose another book and start over again till you are completely satisfied.

Get Hands-On Experience

Books will give you all the theoretical knowledge required to take the exam, but what about the technology practice, you will need practical experience to apply the theoretical knowledge in practice.  Nothing can beat the experience with the technology, platform or solution. It is extremely important that you know how to set up and manage a platform or environment on the certification exam you are preparing for. Some people might not have access to all the required resources to set up a lab environment and work on it. Getting hands-on experience can be a little tricky, but the best way to gain practical experience is to enroll for courses that are enriched with current industry best practice and provide hands-on lab where students can work on multiple projects in a simulated real-world environment.

ExitCertified have over 9000+ courses to choose from to ensure you get access to the hands-on training required.

Join Study Groups

Being a part of the certification exam study group can be of great help to your exam preparation and gaining experience. If you can find a group of other people preparing for the same IT certification, then studying along with them gives motivational help, access to fantastic knowledge sharing sessions and valuable resources for Q&A sessions.

Schedule Practice Exams

The saying “Practice Makes Perfect” holds very good for certification exam preparation. Time management is a critical factor in any certification exam, and this can be achieved only with appropriate guidance and continuous practice. Most of the IT certification providers let you take a practice test before the actual certification exam (some may charge for mock exams). Scheduling practice exams well in advance of your actual certification exam date will help you discover the areas you are good at and the topics you need to put additional effort in. Once you (have studied) for the exam, set a deadline for yourself on when to take the practice exam. A practice exam will give you a good idea to see how close you are to passing the test, or if you have a perfect score all around, it’s a great idea to schedule one of these before the big day.

Find the Right Vendor Authorized Content for Learning

You need high-quality certification preparation content to study for any IT certification exam. ExitCertified recommends you select official training content written by industry experts in the field and is on par with the objective of the certification.  This does not imply that all the questions in the certification exam will appear from the vendor authorized study material, but most of the concepts related to a particular certification will be covered in-depth. However, we suggest that you get the study material for learning from a legitimate source instead of merely depending on websites that provide unsanctioned question dumps for the certifications.

Your success is our success and we at ExitCertified help you achieve it through our authorized IT Certifications and comprehensive instructor-led training. We hope these certification exam preparation tips and tricks will help you work towards your goal for achieving top-notch IT certification credentials.

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