Taking A+ hardware next weekend...

I've been a tech/network engineer for over 5 years now, but am only
now getting around to taking the A+ exam. I've used the Sybex book
for preparation. Any comments on that? The sample tests I've taken
seem to give wildly ranging results. The cert21 tests are all fails,
but they ask questions that are not on the test, and from the way it
looks, plenty of them. MeasureUP passes me at about 88%, and I
totally 0wn3d simulation exams. This test sounds like it's going to
be really hard, even for someone that's been doing this for years.

 

I think you are wise to be concerned. How do the practice tests you
are using compare in content to CompTIA's outline for the hardware
test?

Tom

 

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It's an easy test. I studied for a week with Mike Meyer's fifth edition
Exam Guide, and realized that there was very little I didn't know.

The tricky part for me on the OS exam was visualizing the steps for
getting specific functions in the OS... like control panel applet
functions... It's one thing to do it automatically when it's in front of
you, but quite another to think about the steps in terms of words.
Overall, the actual exam questions weren't as hard as the practice
tests. Also Mike Meyer's website (totelsem.com) has practice exams for
download, that come with vouchers for the test. It's worth it to
purchase the practice questions, if only for the discounted vouchers.

The tricky part for me on the Hardware exam was the laser printers and
memorizing legacy IRQs for common ports. It wasn't hard, but it's rarely
used, so I had to study this part. The exam also tends to focus on the
history of certain PC components... especially the advances the Pentium
Pro and Pentium II included. Also, there is a lot of memorizing the
specific number of pins, wires, and total number of chainable devices
that certain technologies support, such as USB, SCSI, Firewire, IDE.

Good luck, but if you've been at it for 5 years, you won't need much of
it... it's designed to test the skills a tech should have after 6 months
full time experience.

Rainman
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I made a visit to cert21 practice test and some questions were way off
the wall. I know they are not in the CompTIA's objectives. So I would
not worry about it.

 

So I noticed... while some of them were useful to know because they
were so current. There was a lot of useless stuff like DVD encoding
formats that isn't on the exam. I know all the CD-encoding ones, but
none of the books and stuff I've seen has dealt with DVD encoding. I
had to reschedule it for the 9th though because I mistakenly thought
that the 24th was a Saturday when it's actually the 25th, which
they're closed on, so I have a bit more time to memorize my tables and
stuff.