Certified: The CompTIA Data+ (Plus) Audio Course

Jason Edwards

CompTIA Data+ DA0-002 PrepCast is an audio-first certification preparation series designed to help you build practical, test-ready judgment across the full Data+ blueprint. Across the course, you learn how to recognize what a scenario is truly asking, choose appropriate data sources and repositories, work confidently with common file types and structures, and apply core preparation techniques such as integration, joins, missing value handling, duplication and outlier checks, text cleaning, reshaping, and feature creation. The series also strengthens your ability to select and interpret statistical approaches and measures, translate requirements into clear communication, frame results with KPIs, and choose visualization and reporting artifacts that match the message without misleading the audience. Governance, privacy, and quality themes run throughout, including documentation, metadata, lineage, versioning, retention, access controls, exposure reduction, testing, and monitoring, so you can answer questions with consistency and defensible reasoning. Each episode is built for busy learners who want clear explanations, realistic scenarios, and repeatable decision frameworks that map directly to the exam’s style of problem-solving. You will repeatedly practice identifying constraints, avoiding common traps, and validating your thinking with simple checks so you can stay accurate under time pressure. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

  1. AFLEVERING 2

    Episode 2 — Scoring, Question Types, and Time Strategy for Data+ DA0-002

    This episode focuses on how the Data+ DA0-002 exam evaluates your performance, what question formats you should expect, and how pacing decisions affect outcomes. You’ll review the practical meaning of a scaled score and why it changes how you interpret “how many you got right.” You’ll also connect question types to the skills they probe, such as interpreting a small scenario, selecting an appropriate technique, recognizing data quality issues, or choosing the best visualization for a message. The emphasis stays on test-day execution: understanding what each item demands so you avoid wasting time solving the wrong problem. Next, you’ll build a realistic time strategy that balances accuracy with forward motion. You’ll learn a two-pass approach that helps you capture quick wins early while protecting time for heavier items later, and you’ll rehearse decision rules for when to move on versus when to dig deeper. Scenarios include handling questions that involve calculations, interpreting ambiguous wording, and spotting distractors that are technically true but irrelevant to the prompt. You’ll also cover habits that reduce avoidable errors, like pausing to confirm units, time windows, and null handling before committing to an answer. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

    13 min
  2. AFLEVERING 4

    Episode 4 — Exam Acronyms: High-Yield Audio Reference for DA0-002 Recall

    This episode provides a structured, exam-focused way to master the acronyms and shorthand terms that appear throughout Data+ DA0-002. Rather than memorizing lists, you’ll learn a method for converting each acronym into a meaning you can explain, then attaching it to a concrete use case. You’ll also address a common failure pattern: confusing similar-looking terms or recalling the letters but not the purpose. Core areas include terminology tied to data storage and movement, analytics and reporting, and security and governance, with definitions kept concise and anchored to how the exam frames decisions. You will practice a rapid recall routine designed for audio learning: say the term, define it in one sentence, then give a short example of when it appears in a workflow or question scenario. You’ll also learn how to build “separators” for look-alike acronyms by focusing on one distinguishing feature, such as what the control protects, what the tool produces, or where it sits in a pipeline. Troubleshooting guidance includes what to do when recall fails in the moment, how to rebuild clarity without spiraling, and how to maintain a small “hardest terms” set for daily reinforcement. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

    17 min
  3. AFLEVERING 5

    Episode 5 — 1.1 Master Relational vs Non-Relational Databases for Fast Exam Decisions

    This episode explains the practical differences between relational and non-relational databases, with emphasis on making correct selection decisions under Data+ DA0-002 scenarios. You’ll define relational databases in terms of tables, keys, and relationships, then contrast that with non-relational approaches such as document, key-value, wide-column, and graph patterns. The exam focus is not brand names or vendor trivia, but recognizing which data model supports the required queries, performance needs, and change patterns. You’ll also clarify how schema expectations differ, why consistency matters in transactional contexts, and why flexibility matters when data shape evolves. You will apply the concepts using simple scenarios, such as customer orders, event logs, and content metadata, to show how the same business question behaves differently across models. You’ll learn how joins, nesting, and duplication trade off against each other, how indexes influence performance, and what “good enough” looks like when the prompt includes constraints like scale, latency, or frequent schema change. Common pitfalls include treating identifiers as numbers, allowing duplicate keys to multiply records unexpectedly, and choosing complexity when a simpler model answers the question cleanly. You’ll finish with a short decision framework you can repeat from memory when you hear database-choice cues in a prompt. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

    17 min
  4. AFLEVERING 6

    Episode 6 — 1.1 Decode Common File Extensions: CSV, XLSX, JSON, TXT, JPG, DAT

    This episode helps you recognize what a file extension implies about data structure, parsing effort, and analysis risk, which is a frequent decision point in Data+ DA0-002 scenarios. You will translate common extensions into expectations you can act on: CSV as delimited rows that look simple but hide quoting and encoding traps, XLSX as spreadsheet data that often carries formatting baggage and multiple sheets, JSON as flexible nested objects that require path-based extraction, and TXT as “it depends,” where structure may exist but is not guaranteed. You will also cover why JPG is usually not a dataset in the traditional sense, even if it contains useful information, and why DAT is a warning sign that you must verify content before assuming structure. The emphasis stays on practical recognition: what you can reliably infer and what you cannot. You will apply an intake routine that prevents common exam-and-workplace errors, such as assuming headers exist, treating strings as numbers, losing leading zeros, or breaking dates during conversion. You will walk through quick checks for delimiter consistency, encoding mismatches, hidden metadata lines, and “mixed type” columns that silently change behavior in tools. You will also practice deciding the safest transformation path when asked to standardize data for downstream querying or reporting, including when to preserve raw copies and when to normalize types early. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

    18 min
  5. AFLEVERING 7

    Episode 7 — 1.1 Map Data Structures: Structured Tables, JSON, and Unstructured Content

    This episode builds a clear mental model of data structures and why structure determines what analysis is feasible, efficient, and trustworthy on Data+ DA0-002. You will distinguish structured data, where columns and types are predictable, from semi-structured data such as JSON, where fields can vary and nesting is common, and from unstructured content such as free text, images, audio, and video, where meaning exists but must be extracted. The exam relevance shows up when a scenario asks what storage, transformation, or tooling approach fits the data you actually have, not the data you wish you had. You will learn to describe structure in plain terms and to identify the minimum steps required to make the data usable for a specific question. You will work through practical examples that mirror how questions present messy reality: a customer profile that arrives as a table in one system, JSON event payloads in another, and support notes as raw text. You will compare extraction approaches for JSON, strategies for turning unstructured text into analyzable fields, and the risks of forcing structure too early and losing context. You will also cover validation habits that protect integrity, such as sampling, counting, and verifying that transformations preserve meaning. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

    17 min
  6. AFLEVERING 8

    Episode 8 — 1.1 Understand Tables and Schemas: Facts, Dimensions, Slowly Changing Dimensions

    This episode explains how schemas organize data so reporting and analysis stay consistent, a core theme that appears whenever Data+ DA0-002 asks you to reason about tables, keys, and modeling choices. You will define a schema as the set of rules and structures that describe how data is stored and related, then connect that to fact tables and dimension tables. Facts represent measurable events at a defined grain, while dimensions provide descriptive context such as time, location, customer, or product. You will also introduce slowly changing dimensions as the mechanism for handling attributes that evolve, like a customer address or a product category, without breaking historical reporting. The key outcome is being able to recognize which table type a prompt describes and what risks arise when the grain or keys are misunderstood. You will apply the concepts through a realistic reporting scenario where totals must reconcile over time. You will practice identifying grain, choosing keys that prevent duplication, and spotting the common failure mode where a join multiplies rows and inflates metrics. You will also compare approaches for tracking dimension changes, focusing on what happens to historical results when attributes overwrite versus when history is preserved. Troubleshooting guidance includes sanity checks using counts and totals before and after joins, and simple documentation practices that keep assumptions visible when teams reuse datasets. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

    17 min

Info

CompTIA Data+ DA0-002 PrepCast is an audio-first certification preparation series designed to help you build practical, test-ready judgment across the full Data+ blueprint. Across the course, you learn how to recognize what a scenario is truly asking, choose appropriate data sources and repositories, work confidently with common file types and structures, and apply core preparation techniques such as integration, joins, missing value handling, duplication and outlier checks, text cleaning, reshaping, and feature creation. The series also strengthens your ability to select and interpret statistical approaches and measures, translate requirements into clear communication, frame results with KPIs, and choose visualization and reporting artifacts that match the message without misleading the audience. Governance, privacy, and quality themes run throughout, including documentation, metadata, lineage, versioning, retention, access controls, exposure reduction, testing, and monitoring, so you can answer questions with consistency and defensible reasoning. Each episode is built for busy learners who want clear explanations, realistic scenarios, and repeatable decision frameworks that map directly to the exam’s style of problem-solving. You will repeatedly practice identifying constraints, avoiding common traps, and validating your thinking with simple checks so you can stay accurate under time pressure. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.