What book should I get if I want to teach myself what I need to know for the A+ certification? I am looking at either the A+ certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Fourth Addition and A+ certification Lab Manuals by Mike Meyers or the A+ Exam Prep and Cram Pack, 2nd Ed. Any ideas on which is best, or if there is a better one out there. Is the information in these editions up to date?
A+ certification exam prep
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Geekbabe
Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
<< What book should I get if I want to teach myself what I need to know for the A+ certification? I am looking at either the A+ certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Fourth Addition and A+ certification Lab Manuals by Mike Meyers or the A+ Exam Prep and Cram Pack, 2nd Ed. Any ideas on which is best, or if there is a better one out there. Is the information in these editions up to date? >>
mike meyers
Geekbabe
Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
<< Have you guys been able to pass the exams with the Mike Meyers book alone? >>
lol, mike and a couple hundred system builds
Well, I've built a couple computers and know a good deal about them but not all the technical stuff needed for the certification.
Not yet. I'm ready, been building systems here and there for over 8 years. Just havent found the money to do it yet. Lost my job.
I wasn't all that impressed with the Mike Meyers CCNA Passport (misspellings and outright wrong information on nearly every page), but that wasn't actually written by Meyers, whereas the A+ book is co-written by him, so maybe it'll be better.
If you've got the time and money to buy them, I'd suggest using two books rather than just one. Get a "quick study" book as well as a more in-depth book. Read the first thoroughly, then you can skim through the second, in-depth book, which allows you to both re-read information and find the stuff that wasn't in the quick study book. This is what I did with the CCNA; I read the Passport guide, realized just how much was left out of it and how much of it was wrong, then went and read the Cisco Press CCNA study guide, which took far less time than it would have normally, since I could skip the stuff I had already boned up on and knew well, but I got a LOT more information and understood things much better. (As with you and the A+, I've been using Cisco stuff for over 2 years now, but didn't know some things that I didn't use regularly, so the study guides did help considerably.)
One thing to keep in mind is that the actual exam, in my experience as well as others I've talked to, is FAR more easy to take than any practice exams. Practice exams are often badly worded, contain mistakes, are ambiguous, et cetera (for instance, many practice exams don't let you know whether you need to select more than one item, or how many, whereas the actual exam is quite clear on that). If you are reasonably good with computer builds and the OS, you can probably get through the exam in 10 to 20 minutes, even though it's scheduled for a much longer time (30 minutes or 45 minutes, I forget which).
Another thing is that the A+ is now an adaptive scoring exam. As far as I'm concerned, this means "inaccurate scoring". My score came out to be something like a 70% (don't have the scores in front of me) on both the Core OS and Hardware portions. I've been building computers for 7 years now, working with them in various ways for many years before that, so I somehow think I know a bit more about PC's than just enough to make 70%. Someone else got nearly the exact same scores I did, and knows even more than I do. After the exam, they give you a sheet detailing which areas you might need to study up on. Mine included things like telephone customer support, which isn't even on the exam anymore, and there certainly weren't any questions on my exam about it, so I don't see how they decided I need to study it. (They seem to have "commingled" topics, so if you don't get one topic right, then they also tell you that you need to study something entirely different; like telephone support and physical port standards might be a single topic.)
With an adaptive exam, the computer decides what difficulty of topics to give you. If you miss a hard question, it goes back to less hard questions and eventually tries a hard question again, and if you get that right, it keeps giving you hard questions. The problem is, there are only 30 questions maximum, so there's not much of a range possible before you end up getting only easy questions. And if you pass mostly easy questions but get some harder questions wrong, then the score assumes you can't get hard questions right and is based on that, not based on you actually being given a hard question and passing it or not. So in the end, you end up getting a score which is based on the assumption that you're too stupid to get hard questions right, even though it's possible that they just gave you some hard questions that you hadn't studied well, but could have passed any other hard questions.
The short version of that is, don't worry too much about your score. Pass and be happy. I went in thinking there'd be no way for me to get less than 90%, and I was pissed about my score until I realized what they do. You only need to get a relative 45% to pass the thing anyway.
If you've got the time and money to buy them, I'd suggest using two books rather than just one. Get a "quick study" book as well as a more in-depth book. Read the first thoroughly, then you can skim through the second, in-depth book, which allows you to both re-read information and find the stuff that wasn't in the quick study book. This is what I did with the CCNA; I read the Passport guide, realized just how much was left out of it and how much of it was wrong, then went and read the Cisco Press CCNA study guide, which took far less time than it would have normally, since I could skip the stuff I had already boned up on and knew well, but I got a LOT more information and understood things much better. (As with you and the A+, I've been using Cisco stuff for over 2 years now, but didn't know some things that I didn't use regularly, so the study guides did help considerably.)
One thing to keep in mind is that the actual exam, in my experience as well as others I've talked to, is FAR more easy to take than any practice exams. Practice exams are often badly worded, contain mistakes, are ambiguous, et cetera (for instance, many practice exams don't let you know whether you need to select more than one item, or how many, whereas the actual exam is quite clear on that). If you are reasonably good with computer builds and the OS, you can probably get through the exam in 10 to 20 minutes, even though it's scheduled for a much longer time (30 minutes or 45 minutes, I forget which).
Another thing is that the A+ is now an adaptive scoring exam. As far as I'm concerned, this means "inaccurate scoring". My score came out to be something like a 70% (don't have the scores in front of me) on both the Core OS and Hardware portions. I've been building computers for 7 years now, working with them in various ways for many years before that, so I somehow think I know a bit more about PC's than just enough to make 70%. Someone else got nearly the exact same scores I did, and knows even more than I do. After the exam, they give you a sheet detailing which areas you might need to study up on. Mine included things like telephone customer support, which isn't even on the exam anymore, and there certainly weren't any questions on my exam about it, so I don't see how they decided I need to study it. (They seem to have "commingled" topics, so if you don't get one topic right, then they also tell you that you need to study something entirely different; like telephone support and physical port standards might be a single topic.)
With an adaptive exam, the computer decides what difficulty of topics to give you. If you miss a hard question, it goes back to less hard questions and eventually tries a hard question again, and if you get that right, it keeps giving you hard questions. The problem is, there are only 30 questions maximum, so there's not much of a range possible before you end up getting only easy questions. And if you pass mostly easy questions but get some harder questions wrong, then the score assumes you can't get hard questions right and is based on that, not based on you actually being given a hard question and passing it or not. So in the end, you end up getting a score which is based on the assumption that you're too stupid to get hard questions right, even though it's possible that they just gave you some hard questions that you hadn't studied well, but could have passed any other hard questions.
The short version of that is, don't worry too much about your score. Pass and be happy. I went in thinking there'd be no way for me to get less than 90%, and I was pissed about my score until I realized what they do. You only need to get a relative 45% to pass the thing anyway.
That scoring system does seem slightly screwed up, but I guess it is ok if you only need a relative 45% .. do you think the certification lab manual could serve as a "quick study" book? I'm not entirely sure what is in it .. oh, and thanks for the price correction and detailed post
I'm taking the test Wednesday. I used the Mike Meyers book to study for the most part. I'lll let you know how I do.
I'm sure just the one book will at least get you to pass it (and I wouldn't be surprised if you pass with almost the exact score I did; I think it's designed so that almost everyone will get that score, so they have that nice bell curve to show off). But for me, I prefer to get the highest score possible because I KNOW that I have the knowledge to deserve it.
rh71
No Lifer
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AFTER you do your studies with whatever book (and you must read up first), you can get a good feel for the exam by buying practice exams from Cert21.com for $40. You won't regret it.
I think I'd regret paying 40 dollars to run through a practice exam, when every study guide available has a practice exam that comes with it on CD or online, plus a lot of free ones online. They may not be perfect, but I can't imagine the cert21 exams are much better, and especially with an exam like this, as long as you can pass, that's all that matters, because it's not that important a cert to people like us that KNOW the stuff and just want a piece of paper that says it.
Good luck Flashram99. I'm pretty sure the Meyers book does come with a CD that has practice questions on it.
I'm pretty sure the Meyers book does come with a CD that has practice questions on it.You can get the full a+ exam (OS & hardware) for $210 from 2test.com. I just purchased a voucher.
I read most of the Meyers book. Some of the stuff was pretty interesting, like explanations on the buses, how cpu's work, chipsets, how to manually configure ISA cards, etc -- But i found much of the other stuff very basic. If you're like me, you'll skip a few chapters that seem irrelevant or too basic, like the Floppy drives, Power supplies, Sound, CD Media, etc. The book is huge, but the pages go by very fast.
And Definitely get to that printer chapter and read up on laser printers.
Thanks rh71 for the heads up on the practice tests, I'll look into them.
I read most of the Meyers book. Some of the stuff was pretty interesting, like explanations on the buses, how cpu's work, chipsets, how to manually configure ISA cards, etc -- But i found much of the other stuff very basic. If you're like me, you'll skip a few chapters that seem irrelevant or too basic, like the Floppy drives, Power supplies, Sound, CD Media, etc. The book is huge, but the pages go by very fast.
And Definitely get to that printer chapter and read up on laser printers.
Thanks rh71 for the heads up on the practice tests, I'll look into them.
Hey not to ragg on any1...but is it true that A+ given as much high regard anymore? Im interning right now, and they people here say just go straight into higher end certs like CCNA which i gotta start on when i get off my lazzy bum. And how is the network + exam. and holly sh@# $264 USD for a test! CCNA is only like ~$150?
Isn't CCNA a entry level cert? However, any of the certs a person can get is basically meaninless with no actual experiance. I remeber reading an article bout some kid who got his MCSE when he was under 10 years old. Now I know that kid must have been brain dumping, I mean how could it be that this kid passes the test while some people with more then 10 yr of experiance fail? Also I believe his MCSE was for NT4.
I don't entirely even understand NET+, it was one hell of an exspensive test, but proves really nothing.
Deslocke, I have heard the Mike Meyers book was good, I've only used the exam cram books to review right before the test.
I don't entirely even understand NET+, it was one hell of an exspensive test, but proves really nothing.
Deslocke, I have heard the Mike Meyers book was good, I've only used the exam cram books to review right before the test.
Of course it is meaningless without experience, but employers sure seem to make a big deal of it (and they're the ones who give us the jobs). Besides, I do have experience, but I want to get the cert so I can get a better job and maybe learn some new stuff in the process.
<< Of course it is meaningless without experience, but employers sure seem to make a big deal of it (and they're the ones who give us the jobs). Besides, I do have experience, but I want to get the cert so I can get a better job and maybe learn some new stuff in the process. >>
Bingo!!
I had been repairing PCs for 15 years when my company decided that I needed A+ certification.
Geekbabe
Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
<< Well, I bought the Mike Meyers book. How long did it take you guys to study up for the exam? >>
there should be a study guide timeline in the very first chapter of the book,it's based on how many systems/experience you already have.
Great, I've only built a couple of systems. I will be in school for another month and probably working p/t in the summer.
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