Security+ practice test, CompTIA Security+ practice exam and SY0-701 practice questions

CompTIA publishes the format plainly and it is worth reading before you buy anything. You get a maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes, and the word maximum matters: the count varies slightly between forms, so plan for 90 and treat anything less as a gift. The questions are a mixture of standard multiple choice, multiple response, drag and drop, and performance-based items that drop you into a simulated console or a set of firewall rules and ask you to configure something rather than recognize it. The five domains are General Security Concepts at 12%, Threats, Vulnerabilities and Mitigations at 22%, Security Architecture at 18%, Security Operations at 28% and Security Program Management and Oversight at 20%. CompTIA recommends Network+ plus about two years in a security or systems administrator role before you sit it, which is a recommendation and not a prerequisite. Plenty of people pass without either, and they do it by putting the hours into Security Operations and Threats, which together are half the exam.

• Maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes
• Multiple choice, multiple response and performance-based items
• Security Operations is the largest domain at 28%
• Recommended, not required: Network+ and two years of experience

This trips up almost everyone the first time they see the number. Security+ is graded on a scaled score from 100 to 900 with a cut at 750, and people do the arithmetic, land on 83%, and panic. The scale does not start at zero, so the raw percentage you need is lower than that, and CompTIA does not publish the conversion. Questions are also not worth the same amount. Performance-based items carry more weight than a single multiple choice question, which is why finishing the simulations well matters more than the raw item count suggests. There is no partial-credit rumor worth chasing and no published curve to game. The practical takeaway is simple: stop trying to reverse engineer the cut score and start tracking how you perform per domain, because a candidate scoring 85% on General Security Concepts and 55% on Security Operations is in far more trouble than the overall average implies. Score the domains separately or you will not see the problem until test day.

• Scaled score runs 100 to 900, with the cut at 750
• The scale does not begin at zero, so 750 is not 83% correct
• Performance-based questions are weighted more heavily
• Track your accuracy per domain, not as a single average

The PBQs usually sit at the front of the exam, there are typically a handful of them, and each one can eat five to ten minutes if you let it. That is the single most common way people run out of time on a test they knew the material for. The fix is procedural rather than technical: open the exam, read the first PBQ, decide within about sixty seconds whether you can finish it cleanly, and if the answer is no, flag it and move on to the multiple choice. The multiple choice questions are worth points you can bank in under a minute each. Come back to the flagged simulations with whatever time is left and the pressure off. What the PBQs actually test is configuration, not recall: ordering firewall rules so the specific deny sits above the general allow, matching an attack in a log excerpt to the right mitigation, assigning the correct permissions, placing devices in a network diagram. Practicing those as clicking exercises rather than as flashcards is what makes them fast.

• PBQs usually appear first and consume the most time
• Flag and skip anything you cannot finish in about a minute
• Bank the multiple choice points, then return to the simulations
• They test configuration and ordering, not definitions

This is the question worth getting right, because guessing wrong costs you months. CompTIA lists an estimated 2026 retirement for SY0-701 on its own certification page, which is consistent with its habit of refreshing an exam roughly three years after launch. SY0-701 went live on November 7, 2023. What CompTIA has not done is publish a firm retirement date or a confirmed launch date for a successor, so any specific day you see quoted by a training vendor is a forecast, not an announcement. Two facts settle the decision for most people. First, CompTIA normally runs the old and new versions side by side for around six months after a new one launches, so a retirement is a deadline rather than a cliff. Second, and more usefully, the certification you earn is valid for three years from your test date regardless of which version you sat, so a Security+ passed on SY0-701 in late 2026 stays active into 2029, well past the version retiring. If you are ready now, sit SY0-701 now. Waiting for a version that has no announced date, in order to hold a credential that expires on the same three-year clock either way, is a bad trade.

• CompTIA lists an estimated 2026 retirement, with no firm date published
• SY0-701 launched November 7, 2023
• Old and new versions normally overlap for about six months
• Your certification lasts three years from your test date either way

The voucher is the number everyone quotes and the smaller half of the real bill. CompTIA raised list prices across its lineup in June 2026, putting the US Security+ voucher at $439, up from $425. Authorized resellers routinely discount the same voucher to around $395, and CompTIA runs an academic store with substantially lower pricing for verified students and educators, so paying full list is usually avoidable. Then there is the retake, which is a full-price voucher every time: CompTIA offers no free retests and no discount on a second attempt. The part people genuinely forget is renewal. Security+ is valid for three years, and keeping it alive through continuing education means 50 CEUs plus a $150 CE fee across that three-year cycle. You can skip the CE fee entirely by passing the latest version of the exam, earning a higher-level CompTIA certification, or completing CertMaster CE. Budget the voucher, one possible retake and the renewal together and the three-year cost of holding Security+ lands closer to $600 than to $439.

• Voucher $439 US list as of mid 2026, resellers around $395
• Every retake is a full-price voucher, with no free retest
• Certification valid three years from the test date
• Renewal by CEUs: 50 CEUs plus a $150 CE fee per three-year cycle

Security+ has an unusual property for an entry-level certification: for a large group of people it is not optional. The Department of Defense recognizes it as an approved baseline qualification for a long list of cyber work roles, and under DoD Manual 8140.03 civilian employees and service members in covered roles had to be qualified by February 15, 2026. Around 225,000 military, civilian and contractor positions sit inside that framework. If you work for a defense contractor in an IT or cybersecurity role, Security+ is frequently a condition of the contract rather than a nice line on your resume, and your employer will usually pay for it. Outside the DoD world the picture is softer but still commercial: Security+ is the credential that most reliably gets a help desk or sysadmin resume through an HR filter into a SOC analyst interview. It will not, on its own, make you a security engineer. What it does is prove you can speak the vocabulary and reason about controls, which is exactly what a hiring manager is screening for at that level.

• Approved baseline for DoD cyber work roles under DoDM 8140.03
• Covered DoD personnel had to be qualified by February 15, 2026
• Roughly 225,000 positions sit inside the 8140 framework
• Outside DoD it is the standard filter for SOC analyst hiring

Work backwards from the percentages instead of the chapter order in your book. If you have six weeks, give roughly two of them to Security Operations, a week and a half to Threats, Vulnerabilities and Mitigations, a week to Security Program Management and Oversight, a week to Security Architecture and the remainder to General Security Concepts, which is small and mostly vocabulary. Three habits separate people who pass from people who retake. First, do questions from day one rather than after you finish reading; recall practice teaches you what you actually know, and reading teaches you what you recognize. Second, read the explanation on every question including the ones you got right, because getting an item right for the wrong reason is invisible until it costs you. Third, drill acronyms deliberately. Security+ is dense with them, and the exam will use an acronym without expanding it, so a candidate who freezes on the difference between an SLA and an MOU loses points on material they understood perfectly. Do at least two full timed 90 minute runs before test day so pacing is a solved problem rather than a surprise.

• Allocate study time in proportion to the domain weights
• Practice questions from day one, not after the reading is done
• Read the explanation on correct answers too
• Two full 90 minute timed runs before test day