Comptia A+ Home Study or Course

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Hi All,
Please clarify for me.

I thought I knew the answer to this question, but now I'm confused.
I thought I would be able to home-study for the two CompTIA A+ exams, enrole and Pearson-Vue and pay approx £114 each for each exam.

I have spoken to a Home Learning College rep and was told "don't worry you will not fail" as the course they put you through makes up 60% of your mark. I should have pulled her on this straight away on this, but I didn't.

So whats the truth, do I have to enrole in an official course, do I have to be any kind of member of CompTIA ( I don't mind paying a little extra for the exams).

Can I just home study, pay my £114 x 2 for my Pearson-Vue vouchers and when I pass my A+ essentials and 220-602, become a CompTIA certified IT Tech, or do I have pay any more money out elsewhere.

Thanks in Advance.

 

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You can self study and not do any course.

If you want to book the exams you either use pearsonvue or prometric test centres and pay the accordingly. Bothe exams cost £111 + VAT which is about £266 in total, or you can buy two discount vouchers from www.gracetechsolutions.com select international vouchers then purchase the two you need. They cost £107 each with no VAT to pay.

After 24 hours you get two voucher codes emailed to you. When you recieve the codes you visit the pearsonvue website and use the voucher code for each exam to pay instead of your credit card.

If you really want to do a course then I would suggest looking at a college and not a training provider.

 

thanks for the quick replies

 

Badgerbob, just self study. I was all for the course, until I realised it was 5-9pm on a Tuesday night and when I've been at work all day, I just couldn't be bothered.

I've read my A+ book from start to finish, done research on the web, used a couple of other books and I've just booked in for my A+ Essentials exam.

Do it from home mate, thats my advice.

 

Self-study.

I bought the Meyers AIO 6th Ed book for primary study (£20), plus an old computer (£80 - now my toy!), and last week - when exam nerves were setting in - I got Brooks' A+ Exam Cram (£15).
I got exam vouchers from gracetech (as already recommended by greenbrucelee above). You'll need to sit 2 exams (Essentials + 602/603 or 604) so you need 2 vouchers. The gracetech vouchers are £110, while buying direct from PearsonVUE/Prometric costs £114. So, at first, this looks like just an £8 total saving. Meh.
But actually, it's bigger than that. Buying from gracetech will cost you £220, all in; finished. Wheras buying direct will cost you 228 + tax, so it winds up around £260~270: £40 - 50 more expensive. Get vouchers!

Last week I passed the Essentials, and this afternoon passed the 602 (IT Tech). Passed both first time, both were comfortable passes. So it's clearly doable off self-study alone.

So total cost for me was about: 220 + 20 + 15 + 80 = £335
I didn't have to pay anything else.

In doing this I saved myself about 4K training fees (with the provider I was looking at), plus food and travel, and avoided having to abandon my family for a month while I was off on a training course! Plus self-study lets you control your own learning, meaning you can learn all sorts of stuff, rather than trusting some "authority" to tell you "what you need to know to pass".


For resources: I found the AIO (All-In-One, see link above) very useful for giving a solid overview of everything. And the writing style is engaging too. Top recommendation.
Proprofs is the best on-line resource I found. It's generally excellent - if a bit outdated (although this means it goes into more depth than you need on hardware - which is great if you're curious.) The whole site's free, and quizzes on ProProfs are absolutely invaluable.
The Exam Cram book (also linked above) is fairly useful for review, though it clearly isn't meant to be your main resource. It offers LOTS of practice, and testing questions, though some of them are a bit badly worded (vague wording, double negatives, and such). The key advantage is that this book is significantly harder than the actual exams (IMHO) - so if you can do this book's tests - you'll walk the exams.

 

Just what I was looking for. Thanks a bunch mate.
Just started my A+ and can't wait to have it out of the way.

 

Though am not going to take the exam i self-studied with A+ interactive cds( 8 cds in all) and dat was actually like been in a classroom or even mush better because of the flexibilty that interactive cds offer. Check out www.learnkey.com. All the best!

 

I am thinking about going for an online course costing about £200-£500. But the one thing I am worried about is whether it is worth it. Can I actually get a decent job with a decent salary? Are the qualifications worth anything? What companies will accept this qualification?
Thanks

 

If it is going to be your first IT job then you will have to start at the bottom with a low wage and work your way up, certs and qualifications do not get you a job they only show you have the knowledge/experience and can only make you stand out to an employer from other candidates.

You first IT job could pay anything from 14 -16k but if you stick at it and show determination then you will likely progress well, getting more certs and qualifications along the way will also help with your progression.

BTW probably best to introduce yourself in the new members area.