Tips to study for A+

[barton]

Hi All,

What tips do you have for studying for the CompTIA A+ exam?

What areas should you focus on the most?

Do I need to have the practical experience?

Thank you all in advance!

[carrcomp]

Originally Posted by barton

Hi All,

What tips do you have for studying for the CompTIA A+ exam?

What areas should you focus on the most?

Do I need to have the practical experience?

Thank you all in advance!

I would suggest buying a couple of junk towers and work on them.
Brush up on wireless connectivity setup and troubleshooting.

And, if you have the money, get LabSims A+ course. You can do it on your computer and it has alot of practise tests, videos and activities to help you out.

[grayfoxcomputing]

I took my A+ tests two years ago after working on computers for over 20 years so Your Mileage May Vary. I found it "easier" if you get a good study guide (search Amazon) and create flash cards - put the question on the front and the answer on the back.

I had about 100 flash cards that I studied up until 15 minutes before the test. I'm a visual learner so the act of writing the information down helped me to retain it (i wrote the same flash cards 5 times - one set per week before the test). OCD - yes but it worked for me.

Practice tests are good too just make sure that you don't buy the first one you find on the Google results page. Read some reviews. I agree with carrcomp - LabSims makes a good product.

Read the reviews on the products before committing your hard-earned cash. Not every book or practice test you find is going to be worth it, just like computers in general.

[Trusted IT Solutions]

Originally Posted by barton

What areas should you focus on the most?

Do I need to have the practical experience?

My advice is to focus on wireless networking and peripherals for sure. My experience with the A+ exam was that there were absolutely no questions asked on a lot of the material that I studied the most but that is just my experience. Go to the Comptia website and get yourself a copy of the objectives and use those to study from. Professor Messer's videos were a great help to me as well. I also used the Jean Andrews A+ book to study. Good luck!

[dond]

Just be sure the training materials are current. The labsim course and a book ihave from a few years ago are quite different. The materials should have questions about USB connections.

[carrcomp]

Originally Posted by dond

Just be sure the training materials are current. The labsim course and a book ihave from a few years ago are quite different. The materials should have questions about USB connections.

Yes, and LabSim stays current. I used it when I was going through college to prepare for my cert. Worked out really well.

[NWPhotog]

Get a current book, read it, understand it, take the test.

[jrl2222]

I think someone on here posted this site.
It has videos, quizzes, study resources, Etc. Free!
http://www.professormesser.com/

[colonydata]

i would say that 80% of the material on the A+ tests if your a competent tech you should have no problem with as a lot of it is just common sense. the other 20 percent is basically just knowing how comptia wants you to handle different situations.

i found both exams to be fairly easy.

[Computerpete]

A good idea would be take the Cisco IT Essentials course it prepares you for the A+ as it covers the same topics