Top 5 tools on how to pass the WGU Network and Security – Foundations [the second time, oops]

First, in my defense (since we think failures are things to be ashamed of not ways to learn), I had a grueling project that needed to be wrapped up at work. Like many businesses, too much to do and not a lot of time. That particular week I worked about 52 hours with no time off (literally for 5 months not one day except when I was sick). I was rearing to go and pass the test. After I took the Assessment I looked at my score and “Not Passed” was displayed!

What the hell; I haven’t failed a test since my day’s at Weber State University! I don’t even know the protocol. After wrapping my head around what just happened I do what I’m good at: analyze, divide and conquer.

This information is to give you a road map and won’t replace any of the material you use. All battle plans are tested in the field and this is no different (paraphrase of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder).

1. Your not alone
   Well thankfully there is a course mentor/instructor and a program mentor. The difference is the former is an expert of the course and the later is an expert in the degree. After emailing my course mentor Roy and my program mentor Ramiro we developed a plan. They have cohorts, live and recorded tutoring, that helps simplify the large amount of information contained within the class. I watched all three of them. Also I read the book like getting ready for court- multiple times. Roy told me on the Course Chatter than when you are doing an activity there is a PDF that summarizes what you need to know so I downloaded all of those as well. More information below.

2. Re-read: wash, rinse, repeat
   Reviewing legal documents is my day job and I’m not a lawyer. One of the best pieces of advice was from my lawyer co-worker Allison who said in brief the first time you read a document (book in this case) you are exhausted. Honestly many people in my office gave me the same advice. I like to think of this as the priming stage because it primes you mind to understand the information for the Assessment.
   
   I’m a matrix nerd so I put everything in LibreOffice, an Open Source Project. (It works similar to Mircosoft’s SaaS Office 365). At this time I would take the Pre-Assessment to find the areas you need to work on. Start reading sections you don’t understand. After about the 3rd time doing this you’ll be ready to jump off a cliff… don’t jump off a cliff, but you should be ready.

3. Use Mnemonics
   This will assume you already read the material or will after reading this article. OSI Security is broken into 7 categories: Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, and Physical. A good mnemonic is: All People Seem To Need Data Processing.
   Another challenge is the CIA Triad and the AAA framework. Both describe aspects of network security, but with all the “A” words I was getting confused on which was assigned to what. The Assessment (not a word in this group) intentionally tried to throw a few more words in the mix to ensure you knew what they were talking about.
   I learned it this way: when you log into Yahoo mail they employ Multi-Factor Authentication (login, password and your phone). Since this was known prior to the class I made it into a mnemonic:
   Multi-Factor Authentication leads to Authentication (A), Authorization (A), and Accounting (A) or AAA (notice the first two words start with “Auth”). The CIA Triad: Confidentiality (C), Integrity(I), and Availability(A). To be clear: this is only to learned how to put all the words together to memorize them. MFA, CIA, and AAA all have their separate sections. Once you learn this you won’t be bamboozled.

4. Course Chatter: Good advice
   Use the Course Chatter to find out tips on passing the Assessment. One way to determine what you need to know is by asking past students. That is where I learned about the Cohorts (step one) and even how people from the industry passed the Assessment.
   Kun X. passed the first time and wrote, “1. OSI layers (to the very detail as to what entails in those layers, such as which layer does segmentation, which does encryption, which deals with IP and MAC, etc) 2. network devices, what they do and which OSI layers they correspond to 3. Cables (all the subcategories of the UTC) 4. basic commands, I mean all of them and what they do.” He also wrote, “another thing I forgot to mention is the wordings of the questions. you have to pay attention to how they phrase the questions (it's almost like a comprehension test).”

I would add the first part of the book is for concept building and the second part of the book is for security building using the first half you learend. Furthermore, tie the type of security threats like ARP Poisioning and Smurf Attacks to the layer it is with. In this case they would be Level 3 or Network attacks.

1. Reading the Assessment Questions and testing basics

When taking the Assessment the first time I didn’t feel like I was taking a test for the same material I learned. That was because the Assessment, as Kun said, was like a comprehension test. Also read the question a minimum of two times. There was a couple of questions that led you believe one of the answers were true then the second sentence made you think a different answer was true.

I’m sure you’ve heard of testing basics: read each question, read all the multiple choice items, and finally make the most correct choice. That’s good advice, but I would also add normally my first choice is a correct choice; however, I went over the logic on some that seemed more gray multiple times.

Sometimes it comes to a best educated guess. For instance, you’ve read the question closely, you’ve eliminated two answers that were obviously wrong, now you vacillate between two answers and then make the best choice, pull the trigger, and move on. At times the next question would make you think of the prior question as if it was filling in on some of the missing information. Go back and look at the prior and re-read it. Be careful here. I always assume my first answer was correct and only change it if one looks more defined then the last time I answered it. I think I only changed my answer twice. Sometimes I re-read the question and realized I read it wrong the first time then it became more obvious.

With a plan of attack prior to the Assessment, using all tools at your disposal, and framing the test correctly who knows, maybe you’ll pass it the first time.

Good Luck and all the best, Joe