CompTIA A+ Exam Tips By A Student

Hi, I’ll be taking the Core and OS exams for the 2nd and 3rd time respectively sometime in the next few weeks. About a year and a half ago I took and passed the Core exam, but failed the OS exam twice. I was using Mike Myers Passport book to study from, which is geared towards people with a lot of computer experience who just need to brush up for the tests. With the Core material, this applied to me, but I had little to no hands on experience on NT/2k, and that’s what killed me. From my experience taking these exams, I can tell you that the questions are very tricky. When I took the OS test, Comptia would ask how to get to a certain command in a particular OS, but Comptia would give you correct methods for multiple OS’s, plus some normal bogus answers. It was always very difficult for me to remember which was which, although I know that if I sat down at a computer with any Windows OS I’d be able to find what I need almost immediatly.
Another tricky thing they will do is include acronyms that are bogus but sound familliar (I’m talking questions where each answer is an acronym… some will be real and correct, some will be real and incorrect, some will be completely fake). The thing I learned most from taking the A+ exams is that the dry memorization-type stuff counts for less than having hands-on experience, and even that doesn’t mean you’ll pass.About the question selection process, you may find the following by the author of my current study book interesting:
“Typically, several hundred questions are developed for a new exam. The questions are reviewed for technical accuracy by subject matter experts and are then presented in the form of a beta test. The beta test consists of many more questions than the actual test and helps provide statistical feedback to CompTIA to check the performance of each question. Based on the beta examination, questions are discarded according to how good or bad examinees performed on them. If a question is answered correctly by most of the test-takers, it is discarded as too easy. Likewise, questions that are too difficult are also discarded. After analyzing the data from the beta test, CompTIA has a good idea of which questions to include in the question pool to be used on the actual exam.”
I would say, get as much hands-on experience as possible. If you want to, find a site like craigslist.org or ebay.com and buy a cheap run-down Win95/NT/2k computer just so you have something to work on. You can often do this for less than it costs to retake one of the A+ tests, and it means not screwing up your current pride and joy that you rely on. Also, get a really good book, one that takes an approach that you understand and agree with, and that has an author who’s voice you enjoy reading. Every major bookseller in the US has a full shelf or more of A+ books, go in and read a few pages from each until you find the one for you.
That’s about all I can come up with as far as tips go, and please someone correct me if you don’t agree with anything I said, because #1 I’m not A+ certifiedand #2 it’s been a while since I last took the exams, things may have changed.
http://www.killtest.com/comptia/