CompTIA A+ Question

[MrBossmanJr]

Anyone take it and pass it? Was it hard? How does the two part exam work? Do you think someone could pass it with general computer knowledge?

[quigongene]

Have not taken A+, but took another 2 parter, Linux+. Went to the test center twice in 2 days. Think of it as two separate tests.

[jsd]

General computer knowledge alone is not enough to pass it, but it’s not the hardest cert in the world. It’s an entry level cert, so you won’t need years of experience, but you do need more than the average user.

Check out Professor Messers free video series for the exams on YouTube. You might want to listen at 1.5x or 2x speed, because the dude is a little dry and drawn out, but he hits every topic category on the exam and is likely all you need to pass. But it certainly is a good idea to use more than one source, as backup i’d Recommend Mike Meyers’s A+ All In One, but one thing that bugged me about that book is how he mixed up the exam topics for both exams into one jumble instead of separating them out for studying one exam at a time.

Good luck!

[Life_One]

The A+ is a good place to start. I found it harder than the security + or CEH exams. The A+ covers a lot of outdated information. Not that it isn't good to know what the A+ teaches but having to remember all the pin counts for memory and the bandwidth for ports on a motherboard that haven't been used in 30 years is a bit crazy.

You will have two parts to the test. A+ 901 hardware and A+ 902 software. I would recommend Mike Myers courses https://www.udemy.com/comptia-a-certific...al-course/  and https://www.udemy.com/comptia-a-certific...tal-course It will cost around $26 for both video courses and his total tester software which is about $70.

If you look around you might be able to find all of that for much cheaper.  I forget where I found these study guides and they helped me a ton as I followed the videos.
They should help you too!

If you want to pass, you will need to know most of the information in these guides.

[jsd]

The A+ is a good place to start. I found it harder than the security + or CEH exams. The A+ covers a lot of outdated information. Not that it isn't good to know what the A+ teaches but having to remember all the pin counts for memory and the bandwidth for ports on a motherboard that haven't been used in 30 years is a bit crazy.

You will have two parts to the test. A+ 901 hardware and A+ 902 software. I would recommend Mike Myers courses https://www.udemy.com/comptia-a-certific...al-course/  and https://www.udemy.com/comptia-a-certific...tal-course It will cost around $26 for both video courses and his total tester software which is about $70.

If you look around you might be able to find all of that for much cheaper.  I forget where I found these study guides and they helped me a ton as I followed the videos.
They should help you too!

If you want to pass, you will need to know most of the information in these guides.

I haven't seen anyone report that they got a pin count question since like the 600 series of the exam (it's on the 900 series now), but you're absolutely right that there is a good amount of trivial information that no one would need to know on their day to day job. It wasn't harder than the Sec+ in my experience, it was just a tedious effort since the information you need to know is a mile wide but an inch deep.

[Life_One]

The A+ is a good place to start. I found it harder than the security + or CEH exams. The A+ covers a lot of outdated information. Not that it isn't good to know what the A+ teaches but having to remember all the pin counts for memory and the bandwidth for ports on a motherboard that haven't been used in 30 years is a bit crazy.

You will have two parts to the test. A+ 901 hardware and A+ 902 software. I would recommend Mike Myers courses https://www.udemy.com/comptia-a-certific...al-course/ and https://www.udemy.com/comptia-a-certific...tal-course It will cost around $26 for both video courses and his total tester software which is about $70.

If you look around you might be able to find all of that for much cheaper. I forget where I found these study guides and they helped me a ton as I followed the videos.
They should help you too!

If you want to pass, you will need to know most of the information in these guides.

I haven't seen anyone report that they got a pin count question since like the 600 series of the exam (it's on the 900 series now), but you're absolutely right that there is a good amount of trivial information that no one would need to know on their day to day job. It wasn't harder than the Sec+ in my experience, it was just a tedious effort since the information you need to know is a mile wide but an inch deep.

I've been in tech for a few years, but I didn't get my A+ until December 20, 2017, and two months later I grabbed the Sec +. I did have a pin count question lol. I thought the Sec + was easier, the way the questions were asked. They seemed to be more real-world based problems to solve not just rote memorization. That's a Perfect example of the A+ knowledge too.

[jsd]

That's pretty surprising. The general consensus was that they had done away with those types of questions. Annoying that that's not the case, as it is literally useless information to retain.

My favorite CompTIA exams were the Linux+ exams, because you knew exactly what they were asking you. No weird tricky questions, just straight up questions that you knew or didn't know the answer to. you didn't have to guess any at any word games (though it did require a lot of rote memorization, unfortunately). The test was created by LPI for CompTIA though, so that's why it's the best of CompTIA exams -- because they're not actually CompTIA exams