Yes I squeaked by, but all you need is for that certificate to say PASS. I am so excited that I finally passed, mostly because I get to build a new PC. This is my 2nd time taking it so you may not want to take my advice lol. But I will list the tools that I used.

First off CompTIA Security Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-501 Study Guide by Darril Gibson. It has a lot of great information in it. Also he has audio files on his premium website. I listened to them in the car, at work, pretty much whenever I couldn't read.

I highly suggest Professor Messer's Sec course on YouTube. Very informative and I also bought his notes. They're just an outline of the course material. Not really necessary but they seemed to help me.

I used Jason Dion on Udemy. His practice tests are great and even features some pseudo performance questions. In total there are 6 practice exams you can take. He recommends passing all of his tests with a 90% before taking it. I went in taking the test not passing a single one. Dumb? Probably, but after awhile I started remembering the answers and I wasn't learning that way.

I tried to use Mike Meyers but the way he presents his material just wasn't for me. But to each their own.

Let me explain test day. I took the exam from home. Some people claim they have problems with the Pearson Vue at home experience but I didn't. Proctor came on, talked to me, told me to clean my desk off entirely. All in all I think it took about 20 minutes to get started. If you have a decent computer, internet, and webcam and mic you should be good to go. I was using a fairly old laptop and had no problems. The only thing was at the end, when it tells you that you can close the browser lock, the computer screen goes black. I had to restart and everything was good.

I can't really give any tips or anything. I'm not a very good test taker. Skip the performance questions until the very end. They can eat up a lot of time.

Don't panic, breath, and good luck on your exams.