Did not pass the exam

in A+
I took the A+ hardware with the new objectives (and new format) last month. I missed it by just 14 points. I was P*SSED considering the amount of time I put into this. I'm used to being a bookworm. I had a 3.8 GPA in HS and 3.2 in college - i'm not adverse to studying.
This is my first time taking any kind of CompTIA cert. test and I have some questions for the veterans here.
The test I took (through Prometric) had some questions that threw me off and certainly I did not expect them given the all the feedback I read at other forums (including this one) from people who have taken the A+ exam.
There were two questions related to the OS. One related to the device mangler in Windows and another question asked which MS OS supported HALT. That's not HAL - but HALT. Anyone know what OSs support that? I sure don't - never even heard of it.
There were also atleast 3-5 questions related to NetBeaui/POP3/SMTP/TCP/IP.
Is this normal? I dont' think these questions should be on the hardware test but then again - I could be wrong.
I've also heard some people say you don't need to know specifics on CPUs. Wrong. There were some questions on my exam that asked specifics on two popular AMD CPUs. In Mike Meyers passport book, he suggests that you focus on Intel chips rather than AMDs because they're more popular. Again, with the new format and changes made to the exam, I strongly disagree. There were more questions related to AMD chips compared to Intel.
I wrote a letter to CompTIA regardign the OS specific questions and I've yet to hear back from them.
Your feedback would be appreciated.
This is my first time taking any kind of CompTIA cert. test and I have some questions for the veterans here.
The test I took (through Prometric) had some questions that threw me off and certainly I did not expect them given the all the feedback I read at other forums (including this one) from people who have taken the A+ exam.
There were two questions related to the OS. One related to the device mangler in Windows and another question asked which MS OS supported HALT. That's not HAL - but HALT. Anyone know what OSs support that? I sure don't - never even heard of it.
There were also atleast 3-5 questions related to NetBeaui/POP3/SMTP/TCP/IP.
Is this normal? I dont' think these questions should be on the hardware test but then again - I could be wrong.
I've also heard some people say you don't need to know specifics on CPUs. Wrong. There were some questions on my exam that asked specifics on two popular AMD CPUs. In Mike Meyers passport book, he suggests that you focus on Intel chips rather than AMDs because they're more popular. Again, with the new format and changes made to the exam, I strongly disagree. There were more questions related to AMD chips compared to Intel.
I wrote a letter to CompTIA regardign the OS specific questions and I've yet to hear back from them.
Your feedback would be appreciated.
Comments
Firstly, what edition of Mikes book did you use?
I do however find it strange that there are things like pop3, SMTP etc on the hardware portion. Knowing CPUs is something you should have a passing familiarity with, but there really should not be anything more indepth other then being able to identify them as they change so quickly.
HALT - definitely sounds like a typo. As far as writing to Comptia to complain ... ahhhhh, good luck
FIM website of the year 2007
Free Online Exams and Tutorials
http://www.stexams.com
FIM website of the year 2007
http://www.computerhope.com/unix/uhalt.htm
I've never heard of a HALT command under W9x, NT, or W2K.
Modern operating systems like Linux execute the HLT instruction in an idle priority thread. This thread is always executed when the CPU is otherwise idle. No additional execution time for HLTing is needed, the CPU will not run slower.
Microsoft introduced the HLT command under NT and later but is only enabled when the BIOS and ACPI implementation is recognized by the OS.
Hope this helps.
In any event, i managed to reach the Operations Manager at CompTIA today and he said he would look into it and get back with me. Thanks all for the feedback. Like i said, this is my first CompTIA test and I really didn't know if i was wrong to assert the questions related to HALT and POP3/SMTP were invalid for the Core Hardware exam.
He did mention to me that CompTIA does reserve the right to insert "Unscored items" into their tests. These questions are more or less beta questions to guage how effective they might be in a future test and they are supposed to unscored. What I'm thinking is that if this happened in my test, Prometric could have made a mistake in scoring such a question as part of my overall score. Just a hunch.
You should all be aware (if you didn't know this already) that CompTIA reserves the right to do this at any time without advance notice to the candidate and is included in the "agreement" section before you proceed to take the test.
Russ, all i know about these two protocols is that they are for internet e-mail. Can you explain how these questions should have been on the OS portion of the exam? TIA.
For more info you could try:
Exam objective 6.2 for the A+ Core exam is
6.2 Identify basic networking concepts including how a network works. Concepts include:
-
-
-
-
- Protocols
--- TCP/IP
--- IPX/SPX (NWLINK)
--- AppleTalk
--- NETBEUI/NETBIOS
-
-
-
SMTP and POP3 are part from the TCP/IP protocol suite. One could wonder why SMTP and POP3, being application layer protocols, are on the core hardware exam. But, although not entirely logical, if they list basic networking concepts, hardware or software, TCP/IP is mandatory (it is impossible to understand basic hardware concepts and equipment without knowing about at least one protocol, TCP/IP being the most popular and common..) and when TCP/IP is listed you can expect to be asked about any of the TCP/IP 'sub-protocols' including SMTP, POP3, ARP, ICMP etc. etc. etc.
http://www.freepractice.com/
If you can score 80% or better average on all these tests you should be set. These of course, aren't too updated, but they can help... Does anyone have any other A+ free practice websites to share?
Not a very good site to be using if you want to get up to date practice questions, but that's just my .02 cents. Try www.****.com and www.mcmcse.com instead
Chris
A+, DCSE
Porsche..... there is no substitute!