A+

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Okay so as Zimbo has asked that we help people prepare for any certification exams they may be taking, here is what I did to prepare for my A+ exams.

For both exams I used:compTIA A+ all in one exam guide 6th edition by Mike Meyers and PC technician street smarts by James Pyles and I had a couple of cramsessions PDFs. I also has an old PC to mess about with.

As I had not looked at the insides of a PC for a few years and because things had changed so much such as SATA hard drives were now used and the way they were connected differed for what I remembered of the old ST506 with integrated drive electronics interface (IDE for people who don't know).

Also it was all PCI now instead ISA so having those two books helped me get myself upto date on new technologies.

Whilst the PC Technician street smarts helped me by having exercises to follow from a hardware and OS point of view (some pictures may have helped further), compTIA A+ all in one exam guide 6th edition built on the knowledge I already had plus gave me what I feel is a solid foundation in newer technologies from hardware to software.

I read the AIO guide first, then went over it again highlighting important points and making those points stick, next I then went though the PC Technician street smarts book following each exercise that I could mostly I did the hardware side as not all of the OS exercise was possible.

Then went through the AIO again a couple of days befor my exams just reading the highlighted points and I also went through a couple of cramsessions PDFs that I had.

Someone told me about discount vouchers so I bought two A+ international vouchers from www.gracetechsolutions.com which cost £214 instead of paying pearsonvue directly as the cost would have been £266

I found the 220-601 hard there were lots of ambigiuous questions in my opinion where choosing the correct answer was more difficult because it seemed it could have been any of the choices, I only just passed it.

The 220-602 was easy in my opinion as I had really studied my hardware because I was a bit out of date on it and managed to ace it

Hope this helps anyone studying for their A+.

 

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Thanks for that gbl I have just ordered the books you mentioned and then i'll start on the path towards a+.
Little bit nervous at the moment i have no previous knowledge to speak of but as i have been told any probs get in touch with you guys.

P.S Great forum

 

Both books are easy to read plus they will give you a solid foundation not just for the exams but forever

 

Hi and thanks for the info. I will be ordering my books at the end of the month when we are back in the UK for three months.

 

A good post GBL very useful information.
It could do with being a sticky post though mods because ive lost count of the amount of times ive seen GBL answer the questions 'what books should i get for A+?' or 'where can i get vouchers for A+?' in the space of even the last few weeks.

that said maybe zimbo could be so kind as to update his self study post to the latest info, I know that certainly helped me out on the self study path and was actually the post that made me discover this forum.

 

Excellent post by GBL, I must echo his recommendations for the Mike Meyers compTIA A+ all in one exam guide (I used an earlier edition) and the Street Smarts book by James Pyles. These books and access to the net are all the information you need to pass the A+ exam in my humble opinion.

Yes, you can shell out for 'intensive training' for a few hundred pounds, but at the end of the day its you who has to study the material so you may want to put aside some time, self study and save yourself a few quid.

I had very little experience with computer before I started my A+ study, I was just interested.

I was not in employed in an IT position when I took the A+ exam, most of my experience was with upgrading friends machines and my own pc.

I bought an old Toshiba laptop with windows 2000 for £20 from ebay to practice taking apart and a mesh P3 tower for the princely sum of £15, these old machines were great to take apart again and again and who cares if I did break them!

Personally, I find its better to read about something then try it for real on your junk pc, and for reference. It's all good and well to read about CMOS battery but it completes the exercise to rip the lid off a PC and locate one on the Motherboard.

Read through the books and if your unsure of a subject, google it, a different explanation of a topic will help you understand it.

The A+ is considered an 'entry level' exam by some, I consider it a solid foundation to build on...my advice is to try and retain as much of the information as you can and don't try and learn just to get through the exam.

Why, for example, on my first day of employment in IT I was asked to finish a job where some other tech had fitted a motherboard to a PC case, I had to find all the cables and components and connect then all up. I completed this task and had the PC running within 10 mins. without my A+ training it would have took me much longer.

My advise...., pace yourself, learn the subject matter, run through the objectives for the Exam (listed in all good A+ books and Comptias site) when you tick all the boxes, take some practice exams and when you start to score around 75-80% your ready!

Good Luck

 

hi mate

i am new to this website - so hello guys.

i have questions that i need some help on such as -

i have exam in two weeks on essential exam and it technician exam - i was wondering in the exam there will be some questions that has more than one answer - lets say if 3 answers is needed and that i have two right and one wrong do i get marked for that i.e. half mark or not.

also, is the exam very easy i.e. does they ask details questions or is it stright forward i.e. short questions and answers.

thanks

kam

 

The questions are multiple choice and yes there can be more than one answer. Some are very detailed and some are very ambiguous.

You should actually know this if you have been studying correctly.

Nobody knows how the questions are marked or it would be easier for people to cheat.

Good luck.

 

thanks for your reply and i would like to ack during the exam can we pause the exam and then continue after pause and also how long is the exam.

thanks

kam

 

No you cannot pause the exam, the exams 90 minutes each. There are 100 questions in essentials and 90 in the IT technician exam. Why do you not know this? you should.

 

the exam questions for the most part are short and quick to read,as i said before you have less than 1 minute to read,understand and reply to each question.
My average was one hesitation every 3 or 4 questions,there were 30 questions out of 100 i wasn't sure about,the other 70 i answered very quickly and didn't find them difficult.
What i didn't like in the exam were the odd questions where i could see no great relevance as to why the question was there in the first place,ones i remember were about chemical powder and explosions and another was what measurement is this device in inches,if i failed on those questions i would not be happy.
These are the questions greenbrucelee refers to as ambigous,i'd agree there are quite a few like that.