I took and passed the OS yesterday and I am now A+ certified
For those of you just beginning this as your first cert here's what I can tell you:
1) If you are in the market for a new pc buy the parts and build your own if you haven't done so in the past. This will help you for both the Core and OS as you will be covering both in the build. Or if you have a newer pc and/or can't afford another one yet go buy a flea market pc (preferably one that works) strip it down to just the case and rebuild it.
2) Go buy the Mike Meyers All-In-One book. It covers the material as if you know next to nothing about computers and it has testing software with it. I bought it because others on this board recommended it. I also recommend the Exam Cram 2 book for the practice cd's alone. I bought the combo pack that had the main study book and a questions and answers book from Amazon.
Each book had a cd with testing software on it. The main book had Prep Logic and the Q&A book had MeasureUp. I can't tell you enough how much these helped me for the actual test. Take them over and over and over and over and ...well you get the point. Both books also come with a Cram Sheet (the same) to refresh your memory with key terms and concepts before testing. All in all, I spent around $68 for all of my study books brand new and I've seen them cheaper than that since I bought them some time after Thanksgiving.
3) For you younger people who grew up in a world without daily blue screens of death, get a copy of Windows 95/98 and play around with it. You need to know how to get to the device manager, control panel, system tools, etc on these OS's as well as NT/2k/XP. I used VMware to load up the following OS's to practice with: 95/98/NT/2k/XP. This is a much better option than dual booting or multiple pc's if you just want to play around with finding the different paths to utilities and deleting/restoring files from the command prompt.
4) Get your vouchers from Getcertify4less.com (sponsor of this site) or at studyexam4less.com. These sites are setup in the same manner and i believe they have the same parent company. I bought my first one for $99 as it was about to expire from Getcertify and my second one for $99 from studyexam. You have to pay studyexam $7 for a code that you use at Vue checkout when you schedule your exam. This code lets you take the test for $91.xx which totals up to just under $99 and you have a little more room in scheduling the test than the early expiry ones from Getcertify.
5) Use free online resources that are at your disposal. I am so glad that I found this board early on in my cert quest as it has steered me in the right direction. The members are knowledgeable and have been where you are (or are where your are) and will help you avoid the mistakes they might have made. The Technotes are also a great day before the test brush up of everything you have covered in your books. Take all of the free test questions here and at mcMCSE.com and Free-Tests.com. I'm sure there are others, but this is what I used to succeed.
6) Relax! As this is probably your first cert exam, you'll probably be nervous going in as I know I was. I found that the actual tests were easier than my practice tests. If you go into the exams prepared you'll see what I mean 10 questions in. A giant relief will come over you and you'll settle down for the remainder of the test.
7) Don't change answers on the test unless you are 100% sure you had the wrong answer checked! Your first instinct is almost always right. I marked about 8 questions for review yesterday and didn't change but maybe one of them. If you are not 90% sure of a question, answer it the first time through to the best of your ability and mark it for review. If the rest of the test doesn't spark your memory about that question or sometimes clearly give you that answer in another question, leave your initial response be.
This is definitely the longest post I've had, but if it helps anyone who is just getting started it will have been worth it. Just remember to LEARN the material and not MEMORIZE it. There's a big difference between the two.
