A+ Bridge Exam study material

HardDisk

Heads-up. Last chance to upgrade via Bridge Exam, ends 12/31/2010.

I am looking for A+ "Bridge Exam" study material recommendations. I'm interested in training videos, testing software and/or books.

Since I need to refresh my A+ knowledge anyways I thought cramming for the bridge exam would be an excellent way to get up to A+ speed.

Thanks

Paperlantern

If you enroll your existing Sec+ in the CE program next year, and then earn the 50 CEUs needed to bring it current, won't that then bring your Net+ and A+ current as well, eliminating the need to take a the bridge? Or do i understand this wrong?

earweed

He wants to just bring the A+ he has now current. His isn't expired or anything and wont expire. Some people just do that withthe A+ and take bridge exams.
@HardDisk the only thing I know to do is see if there are objectives for the bridge exam, get Mike meyers newest all in one book and study from it.

HardDisk

The Mike Meyers newest all in one book sounds like a good suggestion. Thanks earweed.

ExamForce has a testing/training software package called BR0-003 A+ Bridge but it is not cheap and I would not want to buy it only to find out that it was a quick thrown together product. Perhaps this is a good product but after 12/31/2010 who cares? Clearly they did not price this product to sell, go figure.

Paperlantern, I like your CE thought process. I think you're on to something!

Yes my current A+ is good for life. Does this make any sense to anybody? Would a hiring manager be impressed by a valid A+ certification that is 10+ years old?

OR

What good would a valid A+ (2006 objective) certification be if the job simply required that the candidate have a valid A+ (2009 edition) certification...

Paperlantern

See, that's why im thinking to do this, my Net+ is 2009, but my A+ is... uhm... 2003? I got it in 2004, i dont know what the most recent revision was that year, i think 2003. So I kind of want to enroll my Security+ (when I pass it this month).

From what research I've done on this, that is how I understand that it works. They are tiered in that way, A+ -> Net+ -> Sec+, A+ is i believe 20 CEUs to bring current, Net+ is 30, and will bring both A+ and Net+ when performed. Sec+ is 50 and brings Net+ and A+ current when performed. Because they are all considered built on eachother, they figure if you own the highest tier, and bring it current, then you are using what skills you need from the previous two as well.

You only need to enroll in the program before Dec 31 2012... so they do give you plenty of time to decide before the opportunity is gone forever. As I understand it, if you do not enroll by then, then you can never enroll without taking the new exam. You can also backdate things that could be used to earn CEUs to 90 days prior to your enrollment. Meaning say you took a class for a cert 2 months ago, it was a week long, 30 hour class. You register for CE and apply for credit from that class, they should award you with 30 CEUs right away. Plus if you tested and passed for the cert, you most likely can get a few CEUs for that as well.

A lot of people are scared of this and think its a bunch of bull, but I really dont think it's that bad. $49 a year (or $25 a year if you ONLY hold A+) to keep current any or all necessary CompTIA certs really isnt awful. Plus there is no actual retest. Anyone in the field will continue to get new certifications, and get training, or even give training anyway so this really shouldnt be difficult to accumulate 50CEUs in even 1 year, let alone 3.

For example, myself, if I enroll before 90 passes from my net+ exam, I'll get 30 CEUs for the class I took, and 20 CEUs for passing the exam, theres 50 right there. Not to mention the 30 more I'll get from the sec+ class, and 40 I'll get for passing the test. I'll have 120 CEUs immediately.

Now, to find out if they expire. I hope not, though it would make sense that when you spend any amount to renew, your account then reverts to a 0 balance. However, I have not found anything on this yet to say for SURE if they do that, or let you keep them.

chuckles

I got A+ '06 at the end of Feb. 2010. I just got under the wire with less than 2 weeks remaining . I did this because I started messing around with the '06 preparation in summer of '09 and then life interfered..... When I discovered that they were going to cut it off, I got serious and finished up on the A+ '06 because all my materials (books, tests, etc) were '06 stuff. After Feb. I decided that it would be valuable for me to be "current" and so I started looking into the bridge exam. I didn't purchase any new reference materials but wanted to get some practice exams on the bridge material. At that point, the only A+ bridge exams I could find were Transcender and uCertify. Since I had never tried either one, I got them both. I can really recommend the uCertify. It has the most customizeable testing engine that I had seen. You can pick questions (from the over 650 questions) and slice and dice how you want in any quantity! Once I got used to it I liked it enough that I got the uCertify for my N+ and the S+ (which I'm preparing for now). I didn't care so much for the Transcender. It was OK, I just liked all the extra material in the uCertify and the way you can design the tests.

Even though I believe I only needed a 500 to pass I got a 840 something.

Good luck!