Taking My A+ Test...

[chazdraves]

Well, as it says I guess. I've been doing computers pretty hardcore for about 10 years now and I'm going to (without any formal college courses) take my A+ test in a couple weeks. I've heard they do some questions on like DOS and Memchecker and such... Anything particularily nasty to look out for or any general advice on "things to know"? I guess I"m not real familiar with the test format or anything. Thanks in advance!

- Chaz

P.S. As a side note, I won't be on to respond to comments until tomorrow morning (midnight as I post this).

 

[CombatChuk]

When I took the test, It as all about memorizing IRQ's and COM ports. With Windows XP I'm not sure if that is an issue on the test...

 

[konichiwa]

Try it with your left hand for a challenge!

 

[chazdraves]

Not all that difficult, eh? I'm just concerned that they're gonna peg me with some stupid little thing I've never payed attention to...

When you say "memorizing IRQ's and COM ports" do you mean what they are or what they are typically assigned to or... ?

Thanks for the tips!

- Chaz

 

[PHiuR]

A+ is stupid.
i took the class in HS and all i did was play Q3 and pass the class... lol

goodluck on the cert tho..should be easy enough to pass without looking at the material

 

[CombatChuk]

Originally posted by: chazdraves
Not all that difficult, eh? I'm just concerned that they're gonna peg me with some stupid little thing I've never payed attention to...

When you say "memorizing IRQ's and COM ports" do you mean what they are or what they are typically assigned to or... ?

Thanks for the tips!

- Chaz

Yes that's what I mean.

 

[ThaPerculator]

When I took it like 4 or 5 years ago it was all about memorizing stupid stuff like what com ports are assigned to what, etc. Nowadays, do they even go into DOS stuff?

 

[WHipLAsh13]

Very easy test. Don't sweat it.

 

[DanJ]

My first question was what is FTP?

Yea the test is riduclous easy.

 

[chazdraves]

Heh, very nice indeed... I remember one of the classes I looked at for about 5 different certifications said they still taught DOS stuff because they felt it was important, and I know one guy I talked to took it a few years back and said they still asked questions about Memchecker and DOS... I guess that's the grey area for me, I use DOS and am quite profficient with it, but I guess I've never had to really do anything fancy with it, never had to diagnose any problems or mess around with the IRQs or anything, it's always just worked, I wasn't really into OCing or anything during the days of DOS... but it doesn't sound like that's too big a deal... Sounds pretty simple... FTP=Four Teh Peeple, right?

- Chaz

 

[rh71]

You're a perfect cert21.com candidate. Since you already know your stuff, their exams will help you prepare for the actual questions (they are extremely similar).

 

[chazdraves]

Thanks for the link!

Maybe I took the wrong one, but that practice test I took didn't seem anything like I had expected. The questions were about DVD encoding and WAP Antennas and such things... I was expection questions about DIMMs and FSBs and things more related to computers... Did I take the wrong one or is that what the test is like?

Thanks for all the tips!

- Chaz

 

[chazdraves]

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

- Chaz

 

[Goosemaster]

Don't sweat...




....they'll mark you off for shorting out the electronics:evil:

 

[chazdraves]

I'm just curious... is that the kinda stuff that's on the test? I'm not terribly familiar with DVD encoding specs or WAPs for large companies... I know my internals...

- Chaz

 

[Nocturnal]

So you don't have any type of book to go along with? Man you're in deep trouble. I'd start by going over the new 2003 objectives one by one and making sure you have them down. I recently took the Core portion of the A+ exam and passed it. I take my OS portion next week. Good luck.

 

[Nocturnal]

Also you're going to have to know which IRQ goes with com ports 1 and 3, what IRQ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc usually go with.

You should really get a book and read and or go over the objectives and use various websites to learn about whatever you need to learn about. The people here are saying the A+ cert is easy; it was. It was easy, it is not as easy as it once was, trust me. Anyways, good luck.