Studing for the A+ exam

I am 54 years old, have an AS degree in Electronic Engineering, am a member of the IEEE and have worked for both HP and DELL building both tower and notebook computers. I also build my own computers and computers for friends and also troubleshoot and repair computers. Trouble is that I find it very hard to set down and study all the little fine details that you need to pass the A+ exam. Anybody got any ideas as to getting myself motivated to study and pass this exam.

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Comments

RussS

hmm - shoot dood, I just replied to your post about Mikes A+ book - after reading this post I think I would just recommend his A+ Passport series book. That is more of an exam prep book and should be just what you need at your level.

Antiochman

RussS wrote:

hmm - shoot dood, I just replied to your post about Mikes A+ book - after reading this post I think I would just recommend his A+ Passport series book. That is more of an exam prep book and should be just what you need at your level.

Thanks for the info RussS, I will look into Michael Meyers Passports series book and see if it is more my speed. Trouble is I am more of a tinkerer then a book worm. I love to take things apart and put them back together to see how it works.

Bubsy

Hi Antiochman

Fraid to say dude, that you can tinkle away all you want and be the best techy ever BUT to pass this Exam you need to know facts. I was similar to you in some ways as I am currently a System Support Analyst and part of my Job every day was to rebuild machines, installing new devices etc. Reading Books was not my thing, I failed the Exam in the first instance I found the Exam more theory than a hands on. I then thoroughly read the chapters in the Mike Myers Book and sort of glued together the information that I already knew with the actually information you needed to know about passing the Exam passed second time round with Ease. Remember though this is just my opinion you will get a lot of good responses from the people on this website.

bellboy

hands on does help. but there are some things that can only be learned from the books.

if you prefer browsing the internet to reading books, we could try to point you in the direction of some websites.

Antiochman

Thanks to everyone who replyed to my request about how to study for the A+ exam. I do have the Michael Meyers All.In.One A+ certification book, and I am going to just force myself to read this book from front to back and understand as much as I can. I believe I already have the knowledge to pass the hardware core exam, except printers, which have always have given me problems, but its the OS exam that I really fear. Everytime I think I understand a Microsoft OS, Microsoft issues a new Os on me to learn.

bellboy

you do not have to keep up-to-date with microsoft o/s to do the a+. the present objectives only cover win9x (which includes windows me), nt, win2k and a little dos

Antiochman

Thanks on the info about the A+ os exam, could you tell me if Linux is also on the exam?

RussS

Nope

Rest easy that all you need top know is that there is some esoteric OS called Linux .... lol
Actually Linux has its own exam Linux+ - but it does rate a mention in Net+

Pavlov

It's been a while since I took my A+ exams, but this is a test where 10 years of hands on or 1 year of hands on - doesn't really matter. There are certain facts that simply must be memorized and regurgitated to pass the CompTIA exams (at least those that I've taken).

There are some diagram questions where you'll see a crappy picture (unless they've updated them) of a motherboard and you'll have to identify a component, i.e., CPU, RAM slot, AGP slot, etc.

The books by Mike Meyers are great for the CompTIA exams, but if you continue beyond CompTIA exams and head into vendor specific exams such as MS and Cisco, I would suggest you get the respective vendor's study guide book. Mike just doesn't go in depth enough on the MS stuff that I've seen.

Welcome to the forums and best of luck with your exams.

Antiochman

Thanks RussS and Pavlov on the new info on the A+ OS exam. It is funny,but when I went to work for DELL the first thing they asked me is if I had my A+. I told them that I did not, but I could any machine that they marketed. I was told to build one of there laptops, I forget which one,but I built it in 17 minutes and they gave me a job.