1st read through done

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Well I've finished reading through my Sybex for the first time and took all the practice quizzes after each chapter, averaging 17/20. Now I'm going back through while using some flash cards to really retain more of that info. Hopefully I'll be signing up to take that test in another couple of weeks, I am about to finish my last class for my Associate's and will have two weeks before I start my next class in my Bachelor's program, I really need to use the downtime to nail this cert. Any advice on studying to maximize my time?

 

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Which book are you reading? And good luck. When ever I'm studying, I start off by reading it once (like you just did), then read it a second time while taking notes as I go along.
You'll ace it I'm sure...
Have fun...

EDIT: A+ sorry just saw in which section this was in.. lol

 

Sounds like you have a good plan. I read through the books once then go back and concentrate on anything I know I am not 100% familiar with.

Flash cards work really well for me. I only actually discovered this when I was learning a language and the repetition involved just hammered it in! There are plenty of free apps for PC based flashcards/easy printing or your own lists.

I'd use them to learn certain terms or to remember IRQ numbers etc! Its a shame flash cards don't work so well for the conceptual/practical stuff.

 

Go through as many tests/exams as you need to identify your weak spots and concentrate on them.
If you did those end-of-chapter tests straight after reading the chapter you might want to redo them all in the next few days to see how much of that 17/20 you were getting is in long-term memory rather than short term.

 

Great, keep it up. 17/20 average is very good. I found the Sybex book a brilliant source and the exams were spot on.

Every time I got a Q wrong, I added it to my chapter notes to become my revision.

 

My problem is I've only read the stuff through the Essentials in the Sybex book, so I didn't see anything about IRQ numbers or POST error Codes or anything like that and have seen a lot of questions on practice exams for the 601. Is this really on the actual 601? If so I have a lot of work ahead of me, and I'm wondering why Sybex didn't put it in their book under the 601 Essentials area.

 

POST error codes are motherboard specific are they not?
There's not much to learn about IRQs. It's all pretty much handled automatically nowadays so I doubt they'll put too much importance on knowing them.

 

You will find that the Sybex and Meyers book seem to miss parts which each cover I think the Meyers books has the IRQ and POST error codes.
I couldn't find the word "IRQ" in the objectives but did find this:

1.3 Recognize and isolate issues with display, power, basic input devices, storage, memory,
thermal, POST errors (e.g. BIOS, hardware)

It might be worth having a quick look at the POST errors, the one's I found in my notes were;

100-199: System Board
200-299: Memory
300-399: Keyboard
400-499: Monochrome Video
500-599: Colour Video
600-699: Floppy Disk
1700-1799: Hard Disk

 

The beep codes are bios specific, but the POST numerical errors are universal from what I understand. I wish I had known about these different aspects of the test before now, well at least now I know. Good thing ProProfs was there with their practice exams. I'm going to take a look at Boson's now.

 

I was thinking about the beep codes. My apologies.

I'm lucky enough to be doing a bit of product testing for Boson just now and, although I've not tried any of the other leading practice exam providers, would recommend them. I found the 601 very close in style and content to the actual exam. I imagine I'll find the same for the 602 next week.

 

Right on, I wish I had that opportunity, well I am using the practice exams that came with my book, and proprofs exams plus I got to download a trial of skillsaver that had a really good program for practice exams for A+. I am hoping that with all these resources combined I will know what I need to study up on a little more before I schedule my test.

 

Have a look at this free trial. My seven day trial is still going 10 days later, probably because I haven't closed the program. The printable fact sheets are handy.

Personally I found that I had to draw the line somewhere with some things. For example, I've seen the POST error codes that evilwheato listed before, but decided they weren't worth memorising, mostly because you need a piece of equipment to get the POST error code and that piece of equipment is not mentioned in any A+ resource I've seen as part of a tech's toolkit.
Processors is another area where I had to make decisions. There's no way I was going to learn all the different cache sizes and I figured I'd be really unlucky to get a question on them so I basically ignored them. Too much effort for too little gain in my opinion.

 

Awesome thanks, yeah I don't know what I'm going to do about the CPUs, I think I'm going to try to memorize some of their sockets but beyond that I think it would be a waist to put a whole lot of effort into them. My big problem area is networking, unfortunately I am just not good at remembering a lot of it, my best area is printers/scanners, since I memorized the laser printer and it makes up the brunt of the objectives.