Passed 801, my advice

Note: Due to NDA, I won't discuss exam, but will give you advice on how I prepared! Fair?

For the impatient guy: Passed 1st attempt, 4 weeks prep, used Myers, ExamCram, CertMaster,tonnes of exam practice and hands-on.

Grandma version: After years of being in field, thought shine my resume as I'm also looking for a job

, so trying to validate my skills. Thought I would prep for this in a week, I was wrong; lots of details, lots of facts. In a sense I over-prepared, but I could use the knowledge for other certs. Used Myers, ExamCram, some Sybex, CertMaster, did tonnes of questions/exams on any book I found (have Safari subscription). Took lots of notes and reviewed them often. I didn't user Messer's videos. I don't learn from watching. As I was doing practice questions, I made a HUGE discovery where I was screwing up; hopefully this will help you too: Read questions and answers CAREFULLY not Carefooly!

At times I would get an easy question and then discovered it wasn't because I didn't know, but because I didn't read CAREFULLY! For example, if a practice question said "Which of the following is not sweet", sometimes I wouldn't see the word "not" and mark sugar as the answer!
Dohh!

So practice questions not only helped me with material, but also they helped me discover "why" I made mistakes

My advice: Practice, practice and get hands-on. I had an old PC and day b4 exam ripped it apart, looked at all cables, power, cpu, HDD, etc, etc. So pay attention to "why" you make mistake. If you do enough questions, you will find a "pattern of mistakes". Work on those mistakes.

Hope this helps!

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Hilmil

Lovely post- I'm testing in a week! I've used pluralsight (Ed Liberman) and Certmaster. Thanks again. ❄️

binarysoul

Hilmil wrote: »

Lovely post- I'm testing in a week! I've used pluralsight (Ed Liberman) and Certmaster. Thanks again. ❄️

Great! I found Cermaster useful and 'entertaining'. Go over domain you're weak twice. Good luck.

fuz1on

@binary Congrats!

@Hil Good luck!

meltdown

Congrats

iAnonymity

I made a post asking about CertMaster, how do you feel about it? I've used the exam cram, professor Messor's videos, some random stuff and I can't see paying for CBT Nuggets, so was thinking trying CertMaster.

mr.comfortably

Congratulations on your new cert! I hope it helps your job search.

I am pretty nervous about taking my 801, with a stay at home wife, 2 little girls and low income. I really don't want to fail!

(no prior exp) been studying about 2.5 months.

binarysoul

iAnonymity wrote: »

I made a post asking about CertMaster, how do you feel about it? I've used the exam cram, professor Messor's videos, some random stuff and I can't see paying for CBT Nuggets, so was thinking trying CertMaster.

Certmaster is great and I will get it for 802 as well. First you need to study from books, grasp material, then use CertMaster to 'commit' material to memory. It also has great details about some topics, so it helps you understand. Good luck!

binarysoul

mr.comfortably wrote: »

Congratulations on your new cert! I hope it helps your job search.

I am pretty nervous about taking my 801, with a stay at home wife, 2 little girls and low income. I really don't want to fail!
(no prior exp) been studying about 2.5 months.

How much experience do you have in IT? A+ objectives is full of details; some related to work experience, others simple boring facts.

ccnpninja

Congratulations Binarysoul!

Dakinggamer87

Congrats!!

H3||scr3am

Congratulations, nice to see another Fellow Canadian on here

mr.comfortably

@ binarysoul. No prior exp.

Techie19

Congrats brother. How were the Performance Based Questions? A lot of them on the test? Also heard that if you do well for most of the test it doesn't even get to the total 90 question? Can you confirm?

For a few years now I've been wanting to get A+ certified. I would study on and off, but for the past three months or so I've become 100% committed and finally scheduled the exams. I am scheduled to take the 220-801 in mid February. I'm excited but also nervous. Also have the 220-802 scheduled for the end of March. Decided to space them out this way so I have plenty of time between both. I wanted to concentrate on one first and then the other. Was this a good idea to space them out this way? I've seen in different forums where some people take both tests on the same day or the next day. I don't think I can do it this way. Too much for me.

Been using Exam Cram, Myers, and Gibson to study. I take practice tests almost daily, mostly the CD that came with the Exam Cram book. Also use Quick Cert online learning (Instructional Videos). Just trying to use as much different ways to get as much information as possible.

Noticed when taking the practice tests I don't get the best scores on the Networking part, so this is something I need to spend more time on. Aside from the Networking I get high 90's or 100's on the other domains.

I currently have about 10 years of Freelance work experience troubleshooting and repairing computers and laptops. Installing and upgrading hardware components and software. Also installing and troubleshooting SOHO networks. No server, switches experience yet. I also hold an Associates Degree in Computer Information System.

binarysoul

H3||scr3am wrote: »

Congratulations, nice to see another Fellow Canadian on here

LOL, thank you, same here. We're a small tribe on TE, but growing! Good luck shoveling the snow!

binarysoul

Techie19: Don't worry about simulation questions; honestly I completely ignored the word 'simulation' and instead focused to learn material. So try to learn the material and if you learn well, simulation, non-simulation anything they want to throw at you won't matter.

I found CertMaster useful and in fact bought one for 802. I always thought learning material directly from horse's mouth is worthy! My strong points are networking and security, but I was weak on hardware as I was preparing.

Here is one thing I learned from our smart psychology professor about learning: Repetition is key to learning. We somehow think once we read something, we learned it. This is wrong. So try to go over material a few times; your brain will eventually master it. Try to diversity your study resources; this is also key.
Good luck!