this exam is utterly pointless

no good technician would memorize all this crap. frontside bus speed of various pentiums?

LOOK IT UP.

now i admit you can tell something about someones experience by asking them how much trivia and esoteric details they happen to know.

but ... holy christ. a trained monkey could pass this "test". it is nothing more than rote memorization of technology that is apparently 5 years or more old.

no wonder they are outsourcing to india. do you think indians waste time and money to memorize which I/O ports were used for serial ports on ISA systems that nobody has used since about 1999?

it is far more important to be able to look up the answers to this stuff than it is to just have it memorized and be able to spew it out on a paper.

do i want to know which versions of the Intel processors introduced a 32 bit data bus? well, i have used 8088, 286, 386, 486, pentium, etc, programmed in assembler and pascal on them (little games and stuff), and i have no **** idea which one had a 32 bit data bus. why on gods green earth would i even give a @#$. why should i waste my valuable brain space on this crap? there are very very few people on earth who would need to know that stuff; they were (past tense being key here) people doing low level programming of device drivers and so forth. and i guarantee you that most of them have forgotten the little esoteric details like this as well of stuff they worked on 15 years ago.

But besides that, it would take me about 30 seconds to find answers to these inane questions on google. Not that such an inane question would come up in a real life situation. But I must ask; what is the point of taking a 'test' in which all the answers could be looked up on google nearly instantaneously? Does it make that much of a difference if you can finish the test in 10 minutes by looking up stuff on google vs finishing in 5 minutes because you are a big enough loser to have memorized the pinouts of a SCSI cable; something you have never seen in your life and probably never will see because you never could afford a Macintosh, and besides, Macs are using IDE anyways now?

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Comments

SpyWeb

What if you dont have google? ( no internet access?)
What if you need to fix the Unix server that the company didn't want to change since 1995.
Man I saw so many crap already talking about Old computers that You won't believe.
The 2003 Version of the A+ gets a little update about it.

1Ste

A+ teachs us about technolgies in the past because much of it is still in use today. I believe its a good idea anyways, By learning about the past we can sometimes learn about the future.

keatron

hack wrote:

. But I must ask; what is the point of taking a 'test' in which all the answers could be looked up on google nearly instantaneously?

Well.....I guess there's really no need for any one to learn how to do anything, I mean you can learn how to make a bomb, a car, a airplane,..........hmmm actually just about anything if you know how to google right. Heck, why do we even have college? I know I've only used about 2% of what I learned while in college while earning my undergrad.

Seriously man, I feel your pain, but sheesh, calm down!!

mobri09

It's not just about memorizing, its all about learning.

2lazybutsmart

hack wrote:

but ... holy christ. a trained monkey could pass this "test". it is nothing more than rote memorization of technology that is apparently 5 years or more old.

...

Did you pass the test?

Plantwiz

hack wrote:

no good technician would memorize all this crap. frontside bus speed of various pentiums?

Really?

One doesn't need to memorize things that they may use. You sort of retain it with enough experience, and frankly, it isn't really that hard.

hack wrote:

do i want to know which versions of the Intel processors introduced a 32 bit data bus? well, i have used 8088, 286, 386, 486, pentium, etc, programmed in assembler and pascal on them (little games and stuff), and i have no loving idea which one had a 32 bit data bus. why on gods green earth would i even give a @#$. why should i waste my valuable brain space on this crap? there are very very few people on earth who would need to know that stuff; they were (past tense being key here) people doing low level programming of device drivers and so forth. and i guarantee you that most of them have forgotten the little esoteric details like this as well of stuff they worked on 15 years ago.

I would think if you have used these parts, you would know if any of them had a 32-bit bus. If you mean that you wrote code for them, that may be entirely different, but using them for programing, doesn't make one capabile of servicing them.

And you don't need to waste your prescious time memorizing them. If you are not going to use the skills of an A+ technician in your career, by all means focus your energy on the certifications that will support your chosen career path.

hack wrote:

...... and besides, Macs are using IDE anyways now?

Perhaps you should check it out with one of your "Google' searches, shouldn't take long

1Ste

I think this guy just failed it, thought he could pass without studying and now hes pissed and needs comfort.

Too bad

xlg123

I see his point to as degree. I thought the OS part was a bit ridiculous myself. "How do you get to "My Comptuer?" (Sample question NOT REAL, but..... close)
Than there were various answers with click here, click there....
It's not something I've ever thought about, just done instinctively.
And, no I didn't fail it, just an observation on the test part. I thought MSDST and 70-270 were actually easier (they assume you know how to get to Explorer, My Computer, etc.) Well, maybe not 270 but you get the idea.
Be Safe.

TeKniques

A+ is what it is. An entry level cert. So if it's 'above' you or not to your level than don't bother. But for some of us it was a good stepping stone to bigger and better things. In any event, IMO it is not pointless, because if it was than not as many people would be wanting to get it.

The OP has posted twice, and both times it was to mock a compTIA exam.

rcoop

I have to agree with a few of the responses above.

And as a guy who is sent (or sends others) on-site to (business) customers, which may or may not allow outside technicians to use their network or internet access, I don't want to look like I'm not worth what I'm charging (or the level of expert I'm supposedly sending), when he asks for an Internet connection so he can Google up the answer for them.

Many times while on-site, a successful field technician relies on what he knows and has available to him immediately to troubleshoot and potentially correct a problem. A+ is only a start in this regard, but I would say that even 6 months of hardware and field experience has you hitting plenty of Pentiums, Pentium Pros, Win98, and WinNT boxes, that more than justifies a little room in that grey matter for some of the A+ test questions... maybe that's the experience part you are supposed to have.

Another point, I can almost GUARANTEE if you ask if you can Google an answer to a question given while in an interview, you won't get the job. That A+ cert on the resume might already tell them you don't need to be asked the question in the first place. If I need to pick between someone who needs google or has it somehow stored in their head, I take head-storage guy.

As mentioned in one of the replies above, maybe the reason for the A+ certification was outside of the career scope expected. Apply certifications to the job roles they are intended, and maybe you can back off the rants that a number of (not all mind you) smart SME and industry folk have determined are good for the job role the cert applies to.

...then again, a good rant is sometimes a good way to let of some steam every now and then.

Take Care,
Rcoop