A+ questions.

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I see your point, I won't do it again scouts honour (not that I was a scout )

 

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Cool, man. The way I look at it is... if it's not on the CompTIA objectives on CompTIA's Web site, I have no business revealing it. Otherwise, they'd have put it in there.

I was a scout... but only for 2 years. My son's just starting.

 

Maybe I hinted a bit too strong there... I edited my post to make it a bit less clear. Hope it's ok.

As I understand it, talking about the topics that are tested isn't forbidden - Meyers has written a whole book on it since signing his NDA! I just suggested that it is actually worth studying one topic that del seemed to think wasn't on the syllabus, and that I happen to believe is. (Trying to kill the pread of misinformation)

To echo gbl (this is turning into a habit!) I wouldn't dream of feeding anyone questions I remember, or priming them with answers. That'd suck. People gotta learn.

So to summarise one last time...

According to officially authorised CompTIA A+ training material - legacy versions are not tested directly, Windows 2K and XP are tested - HOWEVER this includes ways of upgrading from legacy versions to 2K/XP, the key advantages 2K/XP over legacy OSs, and setting XP/2K to function in environments that may include legacy OSs.
CompTIA may have any number of questions on any of these topics.

 

But he never says anywhere in his book that ALL the stuff in his book is on the exam. Nor does he say anywhere that you should focus on a particular topic because he saw it on the exam.

Talking about topics that are tested isn't forbidden... but talking about what YOU saw on the exam (so be sure to study for it, wink wink) SHOULD be frowned upon. Again, I might hold a stricter stance than most, we *really* shouldn't be saying what we saw on the exam.

Doesn't matter, man. If it's not on the syllabus, we don't need to be discussing it.

Yes, I agree that if it's tested on, CompTIA *should* put it on the exam objectives. But if they don't, that doesn't make it OK for us to completely ignore the confidentiality agreements that we signed when we took the exam and reveal what we saw!

Again, just because something is in training materials doesn't mean it's DEFINITELY on the exam... or because something's NOT in training materials doesn't mean it's DEFINITELY NOT on the exam. As an author of one book and multiple practice exams, I should know...

Meh, perhaps I should just stay silent and let you guys do whatever you want... knock yerselves out.

 

Please don't say that. It's quite clear you're right.
I don't want to make trouble!

My exam experience is irrelevant to this topic anyway - what comes up for each person is, I guess, largely luck of the draw anyway. Whether or not I saw something, people should study everything in the objectives. But in practice books, I had seen enough questions on upgrading from legacy systems to know it IS on the official objectives, and that these guys should study it. This is what I tried to say. I then added a tangental sentence that was intended to establish credibility, but it was badly worded and implied something about my own exam. Talking in specifics about our exams is wrong, I agree. Apologies to all. (I zapped every trace of it now)


Aside from that though, I mainly wanted to say was that these guys shouldn't ignore something that is on the objectives. Anything in the objectives may be on their test, regardless of what's in whatever training materials they may be using.

I guess the best thing I can do to establish the credibility of what I say is to highlight the relevant objectives. e.g:

So all of objective 3 is about XP/2K. But for questions about upgrading, 95/NT are fair game. It is worth noting that this point about 95&NT can apply to ANY POINT in under subheading 3.2, which means you do actually need to know something about Windows 95 and NT, insofar as upgrade procedure, hardware, etc. is concerned, and what features they have that may impact on a system upgrade.

One thing focussed on in some training guides is the different file systems, and the impact this may have on compatibility and security - though whether CompTIA focus on this is pretty unclear from their objectives. I don't see it explicitly stated anywhere. In any case, it wouldn't lower your exam result if you knew it. And it might help you on the job.

 

Thank you for understanding. Hopefully you know that I wasn't just trying to "be right"... just trying to preserve whatever integrity remains of these exams. Somewhat of a futile task, what with the proliferation of braindumps out there. But that doesn't mean we have to resort to it. Again, I thank you for understanding - I gave reputation to your post.

Exactly right... and worth mentioning in that way, since it's on the objectives.

Yep... and after all, isn't being a better tech actually what it's all about? It's more than just passing an exam, IMO.

 

I've read enough of your posts around here now to trust your motives!
Thanks for calling me out on this. It made me think through how I can communicate what I know in a way that benefits everyone. Cheers!

 

Just saw some of you mention the Jean Andrews book. I haven't taken the A+ yet but something about the practice exams on the cd included with the book I want to share.

I was in a small class where we used the Thompson Course Technology books by Jean Andrews for both hardware and software. The software one was mostly about XP.

Anyway, we all laughed and made fun (including the instructor) because at times the book and especially the video's on the cd were really simple.

Then to our surprise we couldn't answer half the practice questions. Most of them were not specific questions with answers we just memorized. They required really knowing the material and concepts and thinking out a solution which none of us had prepared for. Hey, we all had A's for the class so we thought it was that easy.

Now I'm going back through the books and also using my MSCE 70-270 book for XP to learn what I wish I had learned in class. By the way, the experience in school was the same for MSCE practice tests. Made an A in all the classes and made less than 20 on a practice exam.

Just wanted to share that with everyone. Looking back we all in my class should have taken it more seriously.

 

Two things to say to this.
After I read through the Meyers book, I thought I understood it all pretty well. It's written in such a nice way that you can clearly follow the thread of his thinking right through every problem all the way to the solution, while understanding, and nodding along all the way. Ha! Simple!
But this is deceptive. When I tried some practice tests I was shocked at how little I actually knew.

The problem is, reading/listening is passive. To really activate what you know, you need to practice doing it. That forces you to turn your knowledge active, to look at things more broadly. I think, ironically, failing practice tests is the BEST exam preparation; it shows you in black and white, the limits of your ability.
Of course, actually doing the things you've been shown is the best kind of real learning of all (the hours I spent planning, researching, ordering and building this computer were equivalent to several days' worth of reading about it).


The second thing is, if you have a book, read through it again and note technical details and stuff. Much of this could well be covered under the objectives* (objective 1 covers a LOT). This is fair game for the exam. There's quite a lot there, so I made mnemonics for things - e.g. for the sequence of a laser printer - "Cheery Charlie Wrote Down The Facts" = Clean, Charge, Write, Develop, Transfer, Fuse (objective 4.1). I had mnemonics for EVERYTHING! Resolutions, OS features, the boot sequence... By exam time, I had so many mnemonics I had to make a mnemonic just to remember them all! I admit this was over-kill - but this way, questions on factual knowledge are a doddle. This allows you to focus time and mental effort for trickier questions. And, hey, objective 1 (PC components) is 20% of the Essentials exam and 18% of the 602... that ain't trivial!


CompTIA also has an helpful test taking tips page on their site.

Edit: some links for objectives, as these are pretty deeply buried away on the CompTIA site:-
Essentials Objectives
220-602 - IT Technician
220-603 - Remote Support Technician
220-604 - Depot Technician

 

Right, well I'm using virtual machines for hands on. It's a pain when first I had to learn how to make a virtual network with router, firewall, dhcp, the works. since some things call for more than just a single pc (terminal service, remote desktop, printers, fileshareing, etc.)

I'm gonna have a look at that Myers book too.

Thanks for the advice The Zig. I'll take all but the mnemonics part. LOL the way my mind works I'll replace the actual answers in my head with a bunch of mnemonics and not know why they are in my head.
I've tried that before and it doesn't work with me. It's two things to have to remember instead of one.

 

you are looking too seriously at the networking section of the a+ ,although difficult,it is for beginners,you do not need to have a great amount of networking knowledge for this course.

There are a few basic networking questions in the exam,nothing very complex.I found these quite easy,and my weakest subject is networking.

If you were doing a proper course on the a+,rather than self study, the networking skills you'd be expected to have can nearly all be done on one pc,without the use of virtual pc.

here is what you'd need to do if you studied the A+ at college

identify ip address classes
search the internet for network card drivers
answer broadband questions
diagnose a network problem
use ipconfig
configure a wireless router
and network a printer is the last thing i think

if you look at that list this can nearly all be done on a standard windows desktop.