Finding A+ Difficult

Azi123

I have found A+ very difficult i dont know if its just that exam on the day but i have failed twice and some of the questions are ridiculious i have a good knowledge of comps i am very unahappy with the costs of sitting an exam gets even more expensive every few months anyone gimme any tips on what i am doing wrong i have used allot of practise tests online still dont seem to be getting anywhere i failed both by about 10-15 marks! not much away from passmark

Ricka182

Get a better book. Whatever you're using isn't good enough, and you need more time. A+ OS is one of the easiest exams you can take, and they only more difficult as you go on in IT. You need to know the objectives, which you can find on Comptias site. If you have a computer to "play" with, that would help as well.

evanderburg

Which areas are you getting low scores on?

Azi123

mostly networking and portables sometimes troubleshooting but the way some people describe the A+ on here both hardware and software sound like its ABC 123!

skully93

The A+ exam(s) are BASIC, but not SIMPLE.

There's a fair amount of stuff you have to memorize for the exam that it's pretty rare to use in newer machines. However, knowing it and why it works gives you the mental tools to troubleshoot better.

There's also the issue that some of questions are pretty ambigous, though I don't think you'd fail the exam because of it.

Plantwiz

Azi123 wrote:

mostly networking and portables sometimes troubleshooting but the way some people describe the A+ on here both hardware and software sound like its ABC 123!

Sorry to hear you are having such a rough go, but hang in there.

A+ is geared toward people with field experience and not necessarily just book knowledge. Even with their recommended 500 hours of experience, it would be impossible to run into ALL situations even in a computer shop, but over time and working with others who do have more knowledge...that gap shrinks and you'll be the one helping others soon enough.

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Get some older equipment, setup a test area for yourself with a computer or two and install, uninstall, get familiar with the parts with your hands.

It takes time - there is no magic.

I'll say the stuff is 'easy' but I've been working with computers for over 22 years (even before, but that's when I began taking things apart and tweaking). I've been fortunate to see and experience first-hand a number of hardware/software generation changes.

Hang in there and don't rush the test, give yourself more time to prepare.

skully93

Another fun thing to note:

When I was studying for the A+ I came accross one of the old books from the early 90's.

There was stuff on there that would kill me, simply because at that time I did have a computer, but to know about the innards of it was very foreign.

We're talking pre-windows, so I barely knew what a hard drive was and the CD-rom wasn't out yet.

There was a lot of stuff about Macs, Dos, BASIC, etc.

So count yourself lucky we have GUI's now