What's the chance of passing without any 'hands on' experience

Evan7

I'm about 2 classes away from graduating with an with an associates degree in IT Networking. I took a course pertaining to A+, and got an 'A' grade. That was a year ago. Since then, I've haven't had much hand's on experience working with computers (the hardware aspect of it).

Is not having any real world experience working on motherboards, drives, etc going to hurt my chances of passing the A+ exam (which I'd like to take this year to be certified for life)?

I've read books, used CBT Nuggets, etc, but I haven't had the opportunity to work on a pc.

Money is sort of an issue, since I'm unemployed (and a full time student), so it's not like I can go out and buy a lot of hardware and old computers to work on.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Devilsbane

Probably fairly good. CompTIA's questions are pretty upfront and don't require you to have a complete understanding of the concept. Lots of the questions might just be about defininitions and stuff.

The A+ also contains a lot of customer service type questions. Questions like "You are working on Mike's computer from HR and find that payroll information is on his screen, what do you do?"
A. Turn off the screen and continue working
B. Call your buddy and complain to him that Sally makes more than you do
C. Copy down as much of it as you can.
D. Do nothing

As long as you have good common sense, and have studied the materials, you should be able to pass. You likely won't score 100%, but you certainly could pass.