SpartanCaptain wrote:Hey guys I have been working in IT for years but I do not have my A+ cert. I am now required to get it and I am trying to find a book to use as a study guide. Can anyone recommend the best from the comptia A+ test. Hopefully from amazon.com
I'd suggest one of the official cirriculum study guides directly from CompTIA. They are the most comprehensive and map the closest to the test. Fair warning though, there are always questions on the test that deviate from the cirriculum. The test developers like to see how much real world knowledge you have. Those type questions are relatively small in the overall scope of things.
http://www.comptiastore.com/category_s/28.htmOmniman wrote:I've been confused on this myself. Do they still force you to answer questions about hardware from the 90's?
Yes, very old hardware is still on there. Like Hubs for example, knowing what BNC is, what Baby AT is, etc. Thing is some of these hardware pieces still live in dark corners of the world. Like in churches or even some small businesses. Getting their cheap owner to replace them can be challenging.
DancinJack wrote:Honestly if you have been working in IT for years, you should have zero trouble passing the exam. There are a few questions still on the exam about stuff that is a little older, but it's not like the whole thing is about parallel cables or something. You can find practice tests online along with some study materials. I wouldn't spend money on a book if you don't really have to. The exam is fairly basic.
While it is entirely possible to pass the exam cold turkey, the first exam 220-701 can be incredibly challenging to a person who has never worked in a mom and pop shop. You need a vast and deep hardware knowledge that spans back into the 90s. You need to know every variant of CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, RAM and how to determine it's bandwidth spanning from DDR3 all the way back to SDR (SIMM knowledge doesn't hurt either), etc.
That may be easy for many of us here, but for those who have always lived in a corporate environment where after diagnosis of a dead part we simply called Dell and gave the service tag number to get the replacement part. Well, those inidividual tend to find themselves in a world of hurt. As that workstyle allows you to ignore what lives in the machine. Many people do this type of work as a job, not as a hobby as well. So their knowledge of the coming and goings of hardware is very limited.
Scrotos wrote:I remember it asking about components of laser printers. Corona wire and whatever the heck else. That was quite some time ago so perhaps it isn't as oddly in-depth about some things anymore.
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Laser printers were at one time a staple of the exam. Including tiny things like not putting them on an UPS, knowing the major parts, and knowing the stages of the printing cycle. All these items have since been retired from the exams.