Self Study Techniques

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi Everyone

After months of deliberations, wrong turns and turning 35 I have decided to study for my A+ certification. I had gained around 6 years of IT helpdesk, installations etc. so I do have some experience but that was 3 or 4 years ago.

I have got the Sybex A+ 2009 study guide pack, the one with the PC Street Smarts book. I really want to get this done before August if possible, but I just need some advice to get me started.

I am just looking for some advice on how to approach the studying. Does anybody have suggestions on how to actually structure the studying as am sure I will be able to do it, I am just panicking that I will miss lots of information and am a person that needs to know I am doing OK as I go rather than just waiting for the exam at the end.

Thanks a lot for reading and any advice would be great so I can tackle this monster

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I'd advise using end-of-chapter questions and any exam sims you can (legally) get your hands on.
The trick to measuring your progress is not looking at the answers. Don't even look to see if you have a particular question right or wrong, just rely on the overall score for chapters/domains.
Keep at least one exam sim unlooked at, use this when you think you're ready for the real thing.
Get someone else to mark your paper based tests (end-of-chapter tests etc) and make sure they only give you the overall score.
This is a good way to keep track of your progress in different areas so you can concentrate on your weak spots.

I always find it useful to read the book like a book first, cover to cover, no note taking. Concentrate on understanding things first.
There's also a lot of acronyms, standards, minimum requirements etc to learn. Identify these and get some sort of flashcard system on the go early doors.

Should be a more of a catch-up for you, with your previous.

 

Thanks for that Soundian

I have made a start on reading through the book and just trying to concentrate on each chapter. I am also looking to get as much experience as I can through voluntary work and creating a blog about the home projects I have on the go.

One other thing, does anybody know of a good IT news website/RSS feed for straight forward news and updates.

Thanks again, this is a brilliant site and I think I will be in here most days.

Cheers

 

Hey,

Re: news sites, i use http://www.theregister.co.uk and http://www.computerweekly.com

Hope that helps