Should I study DOS, Win9x, 2000 & XP for core Exam?

infamous

I will be taking the core exam in a week or so and am wondering whether I should cover the following OSs or skip them. I am currently using Mike Myers All in one guide 4th ED and have covered everything in the book except for those sections. Can someone clear this up for me.

Also is there a major diff. between his 4th ED and the newer 5th ED that came out in the fall?


Thanks in advance!

janmike

Fifth edition covers the present CompTIA ojectives. Fifth was published because the exam was upgraded last year. The info in fouth edition is all good, but you will likely miss studying some subject matter covered on the present exam.

I think that Michael Myers's All-In-One book is one of the best on A+. I used it to polish up on the OSs when studying for the exam. I got copies of all the systems that he covers in the book, and then did the installs, etc.
as I went through the section on that particular OS. I was really helpful.

Just don't neglect the DOS commands. I understand that they're still used widely(I still use them). Meyers covers all the pertinent ones on All-In One.

Best of luck on the exam!

infamous

Thanks for your reply JanMike. So you're saying that for the Core exam I should really just know DOS commands and not bother going over win9x/2000/xp?

Cheers

bighusker

Truth be told, there's not really that much on the specific OSes on the Core Hardware test. Just knows the basics.

However, you will need to know everything in Mike's book about 9x, NT/2000/XP and the basic DOS commands.

janmike

Guess I misunderstood your original post a bit.

I tend to think of the 2 A+ exams as being part of each other I guess. I took both of my exams same day back-to-back. And, all your study guides don't just present it like, "Here is the Core material" and "Here is the OS material." But, a lot of informations is integrated together. I was mostly just thinking about Meyers's book and your question concerning its usefulness.

On hardware know your popular CPUs, RAM, BIOS, expansion cards, expansion slots, types of buses, local buses, etc., -- you know....uhh....harware!(lol)

Actually, infamous, the A+ exam covers such a broad area of knowledge and basic skill that it's hard for me to segregate hardware from OSs, because you simply don't do anything with hardware unless you have some sort of OS and the reverse is also true. Well, I'll cut that out right now. I can't even explain myself, much less the CompTIA exam!

I suppose that my advice is, don't try to break it into 2 different sets of info when you have to pass both to get the cert anyway. But, mostly I hope that you find a way to cover the info and to pass the exams that best suits you.

Best of luck--I really mean that.

jstar3

I just took the Core and got a 588. There was nothing on operating systems and dos commands. I'm sure Comptia saves those questions for the OS test.

imeldesign

I just came back from the Core Exam (I passed) with no questions relating to OSes but a general knowledge will put questions into perspective. I did the exam in 33 minutes and thought it was easy. There were only five questions that made me stop and think. Good Luck.
I would recommend Prelogic as a cheap ($59) set of practice exams. Although, I found four errors in the Preplogic exams. Many of the questions were word for word.