Anyone taken the A+ Certification test lately?

[KfistoRok]

Just curious if anyone has taken this test anytime soon. Hardware or software. I think I can manage to pass it w/o studying, but you never know.

So does anyone have any pointers on what to study? Or know where to get any good practice q's?

 

[thorn]

I would definately study. Though I have not taken the test yet, I have studied alot, and taken alot of practice exams. Check out http://www.freepractice.com for some free practice exams. I would also get the all-in-one A+ book by Micheal Myers. It's a good book with everything you'll need to know. BTW, I have been a PC repairman on the side for about 8 years and there was quite a few things I did not know in there. Oh, and for the cheapest place on the book check out http://www.bookpool.com.

 

[Cowboy Shane]

Do you know the memory addresses of all the com ports, standard IRQ for a keyboard or a printer, how to troubleshoot a laser printer? It's minutia like that that causes people to fail the test even if they are competent repair technicians.

 

[thorn]

I do.

And, you'll need to know ALL IRQs and DMAs by heart.

 

[fiji]

whats a irq? or dma?

 

[Penguin4x4]

I would definately study. Though I have not taken the test yet, I have studied alot, and taken alot of practice exams. Check out http://www.freepractice.com

Most of those I got at least 70% correct. Is that good?

 

[thorn]

IRQ is the abbreviation for Interrupt ReQuest. There are 16 total IRQs on today's PCs. They, basically, are lines on which devices such as PCI cards can interrupt the operations of the CPU to request data.

DMA Channels are similar in nature, but DMA is short for Direct Memory Access. Basically, DMA channels allow devices to communicate directly with the system memory or RAM without bothering the CPU.

For future reference you can look up terms like these on google or webopedia.com.

 

[thorn]

Most of those I got at least 70% correct. Is that good?

Yeah, that's pretty good. The A+ is an adaptive test so it's not a traditional percentage of write answers.

This is CompTIA's definition of an adaptive test:

An adaptive test adjusts its questions dependent upon your answer to the previous question. In this format, no two tests are alike and the testing time is greatly reduced.

And about the scoring:

A+ exams consist of two exams and both tests are administered in an adaptive format. Each test consists of 20 - 30 questions and are scored on a scale of 0 - 1300. The minimum passing score for the A+ Core Hardware exam is 596 and the minimum passing score for the A+ OS Technologies exam is 600. Thirty minutes are allowed to complete each exam.

My first time throught the freepractice website I was scoring in the high 80s to mid 90s, and I kept retaking them until I scored 100% every time. I would not judge complete proficiency for the A+ exam by using this website alone. It's just one of the few decent free ones I found during my study.

EDIT: If anyone is considering taking this test it will be updated in the early third quarter of this year.

 

[nealric]

I took it last august.

Beware of obscure nt4 questions!

Definetly study, because there is a ton of random bs that they ask. Its not worth $240.

 

[thorn]

To save a few $$ look for vouchers on ebay.

 

[clash]

I took it, and like he said, study up on NT. Actually quite a few companies still running this. Know each and every DOS command,know laser printers in and out. Know every Processor Socket, all the way back to a xt. Know hardrives in and out, clusters, cylinders, etc. Know memory addressing. Basicly study EVERYTHING, there is no way to know what questions you are going to get.

Know that Linux rocks.... And this coming from a MCSE

 

[KfistoRok]

Wow. Looks like a lot of good info here. Thanks a lot.

One of my buddies studied for these tests kinda' of hard for a couple weeks each and passed them both.

He didn't have any NT questions. They were mainly 2000 q's. But since it is an adaptive test its totally random what kinds of questions a person will have.

Thanks for the link to http://www.freepractice.com thorn. Looks like a really good practice site.

I know zelch about laser printers...

 

[thorn]

Yeah, this test is all 2000 at least that's what my study guides focus on.

 

[Cowboy Shane]

Yeah, I'm a bit out of date. When I took the exam it was NT 4, DOS, and Windows 95.