Milwaukee Area Technical College



Student Info:Objective:Over the course of this semester, I have prepared, taken, and passed the 2009 CompTIA A+ certification exams for my one-credit project. The CompTIA A+ exams are vendor-neutral certification which proves competence in the computer support areas of installation, preventative maintenance, networking, security, and troubleshooting.The two exams necessary to complete this certification are the CompTIA A+ Essentials and the CompTIA A+ Practical Application exams. The Essentials exam measures the necessary competencies of entry-level IT professionals while the Practical Application has more of a “hands-on” focus by testing troubleshooting and problem solving pTIA Transcript link: Used:The general consensus among people who have already taken their certification tests is that multiple sources of information should be utilized in study preparation. The reasons for this are because one source may cover a topic more thoroughly than another source and repetition is a key component to memorization of the information. With the exception of my MATC required class (ITSUP-102 Core & OS Technology) and a self-study book, my goal was to find the most useful information I could for the low, low price of “free.” If it cost money, I did not use it.A+ Guide to managing and maintaining your PC BookThe first of my reference materials is the book from my ITSUP-102 Core & OS Technology class, “A+ Guide to managing and maintaining your PC, Sixth Edition.” This book actually maps to the previous 2006 A+ exam series, and although it is now out-of-date, the majority of the groundwork it covered is still the same. Although I have not reread the book recently in preparation for the A+ tests, I consider my time spent utilizing the resource from my classroom experience to be part of my knowledge base. This outdated book now retails on Amazon for $pTIA A+ All-in-One Exam Guide BookThe book I did read during this semester as part of my preparation of the 2009 version of the A+ exams is Michael Meyers’s “CompTIA A+ All-in-One Exam Guide 7th Edition” self-study book. It is a very well-written book, and puts things in an informal, easy-to-read language rather than large amounts of technical jargon. Ultimately I chose this book because my web research shown it to be the resource most often recommended from people who have already passed their A+ exams. This book also came with a practice exam on the included CD, which I utilized. The book sells for $59 at Barnes and Noble, and as little as $39 on Amazon.CBT Nuggets VideosApproximately half way through reading the “A+ All-in-One Exam Guide,” I began to view CBT Nuggets’ “CompTIA A+ 2009 Certification Package” suite of videos. The instructor, James Conrad, was very easy to follow while still being informative. Sometimes the geeky humor he used to help keep you interested was more “groan-inducing” than funny, but ultimately the set of 44 videos was highly enjoyable to watch. Anything that was being discussed during the particular nugget had an accompanying high-resolution photo for visual reference. A number of times these nugget videos taught me things I didn’t quite fully grasp from the reading, but for the most part, I found these videos were good review for the concepts already covered in my books. This video package is expensive at $400, but a limited subscription period is extended to MATC students, making this resource free.Professor Messer VideosAfter finishing my book and CBT Nuggets videos, I turned to for the free A+ training videos located there. The website’s A+ section acts as a portal and is used to centrally access the videos which are hosted on YouTube. This site came recommended from many people who have taken their A+ certification. I watched less than one-quarter of that video series. The Professor Messer video suite is free.ProProfs WebsiteAs my studies wound down, I began to visit quite a bit; the discussion forums in particular. I found reading other’s experiences, both failings and successes, to be useful in my study. While every A+ exam has a different set of questions, forum users would post the most common topics they had been tested on, and this helped to focus my final study on what seemed to be reoccurring important areas. Many users on the ProProfs forums have also written web-based practice exams to help test your knowledge level. These tests and quizzes are an extremely handy, and free, way to see how well you are retaining information. I found these practice exams to be far more difficult than the real A+ exams, so if you do well on these user-made tests, you should be sitting well on the real-deal. The tests can be easily found in the forums, most of them are in a “Pinned” announcement at the top of the discussion threads.Another useful aspect of the ProProfs community was user-made “Cram sheets.” I found these printable documents to be surprisingly high-quality; filled with reference pictures and useful information like IRQs and printer processes to help you commit it all to memory. is free.Hands-onDuring this semester, I had also built, set-up, and installed operating software on two computers for people and have repaired multiple others. This real-world practice experience helps to keep the topics and principals covered in these reference materials fresh in my mind. I have also tested out most of the command line tools and other Windows utilities that I wasn’t very familiar with on my Windows XP Service Pack 3 machine. Any Windows Vista differences that were covered I tried to commit to memory as much as possible. CompTIA WebsiteYou can get both exam objectives and 30 exam questions for free directly from CompTIA’s webpage at . The objectives I didn’t really use, since I read the whole self-study book and watched all the CBT Nugget videos anyways, but the 30 question exam was very telling of the kind of things I would be facing at the actual tests.Helpful, or Not:Everyone learns better a different way, so what has worked for me, may not be as successful to others. But I have used a different method of learning for each phase of study, so at least one of these recommendations should prove to be useful to anyone. Personally I would recommend the “CompTIA A+ All-in-One Exam Guide 7th Edition” self-study book, CBT Nuggets’ “CompTIA A+ 2009 Certification Package”, and ’s plethora of freely accessible information. I found each resource to be filled with tons of useable, useful data and all were enjoyable to use; which many times is hard to say about material covering dry topics such as technology. The practice test software found included on CD in the A+ All-in-One Exam Guide, CompTIA’s 30 free exam questions, and the user-made quizzes on ’s website were the only tests I had used to gauge my ability. Those user created practice tests have proven to be harder than the actual tests. Also, I recognized one question from the Essentials exam as one that I took on CompTIA’s free 30 question exam. So those questions are the real thing, you just may not see all of those particular questions in use. If you are new to the world of computers, it is also highly recommended that you have a tower that you can tear down, rebuild, set-up, and otherwise dabble with to get hands-on experience. I cannot recommend “A+ Guide to managing and maintaining your PC, Sixth Edition” because it is now outdated. I do remember that while I used the book for my ITSUP-102 Core & OS Technology class, I was not very impressed with it. So even if it was not out-of-date, I don’t believe I would recommend it, or its updated edition for that matter.I also found Professor Messer’s video series to be lacking. The information covered felt too general to be of any real use toward the tests. To be fair, I was mostly finished with all my other reference materials by the time I began to view these videos, so it may have just seemed less useful because I had learned so much already. Still, I do not recommend these videos if you have access to CBT Nuggets.Test Information:You must take two tests to become certified, these test are called Essentials and Practical Applications. The cost is $168 per test. There is a MATC school discount which drops the price to $74 per test. These discounted vouchers require completely different exam codes when you first register to work though. So pay attention to the exam ID you are choosing, or it may tell you the voucher is not valid, and you will have to figure out what you did wrong.Both tests have a 90 minute time limit. Each test is 100 questions long. The A+ exam is entirely multiple choice questions, of which there may be a number of questions that require multiple correct answers.Testing Location and Date:I chose to take my A+ tests in Pewaukee at Waukesha County Technical College. This is because they are closer to me than the Downtown campus where Milwaukee Area Technical College’s testing center is. I took my Essentials exam at 11:30 AM on Thursday, December 2, 2010 and my Practical Application Exam at 12:30 PM on Friday, December 3, 2010.Experiences:Registration was easy. Sign up on Pearson VUE’s website, set up your account stating you plan on taking CompTIA exams, enter you voucher codes, and choose your testing dates.I chose to separate my test dates for a couple of reasons. The first being, I didn’t want to overly stress myself with a long testing time. The second was that if I were to fail the Essentials test, I still had a night to cram on any information I was weak at before the second test. It was kind of a safe guard against two subsequent failures.I was extremely nervous before taking the Essentials test. I was confident that I knew the information, but never having taken the test before had me worried about what I would be facing. I didn’t want the money I paid in preparing and taking these tests to go to waste. You are expected to show up to the testing facility 15 minutes early to sign in. Bring two forms of identification with you; one must have your picture. Leave everything else you have in your car, since you are not allowed to take wallets, phones, or even hats in with you to the testing room. After signing in, you are sat down at the testing computer, and you are given a dry-erase board to jot down any notes you think you may blank out on during the pressure of testing. At this point you must also read over the legal disclaimers on the computer before the test. Once you click “Okay,” you are asked “Are you sure you are ready?” a couple of times and the test and timer begin. 100 questions or 90 minutes later your test is completed. Some questions are almost stupidly blatant at what the correct answer should be, but a good number of them will really make you think. You may flag any questions that confuse you so that you can review them later before submitting the test. Do not waste too much time trying to figure out an answer, flag it and move on. You can go back to figure it out at the end of the test before your time runs out if you need to. After final submission of your test, you are asked a series of demographic questions such as age, race, what kind of work you do, and who is paying for the test. After those questions you are greeted with your score and any areas you had difficulty with.You will then leave the testing room and the person overlooking the test area will give you a printout of your score and the overview areas you had trouble with. At this point you sign out and continue on with your day… either a bit happier or disappointed. Advice to Others:The most important thing you can do is research what study aids worked for other people. I wouldn’t have picked the “CompTIA A+ All-in-One Exam Guide, 7th Edition” if it wasn’t for so many people saying the book was great. Most books come with a practice test, so take advantage of that fact and use it! Use the CBT Nuggets videos if you can, they are very good. Certainly visit, and maybe even join, ’s discussion boards, there is a wealth of knowledge there and it is all free. You can also take a free 30 question mini-exam directly at CompTIA’s website, which I would highly recommend. It will give you a very good idea of what the real exam will pit you against. Good Luck! ................
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