Customer Reviews

A+ Certification Kit, Second Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First, the good news. I passed both the core and the Dos/Windows exams by using these books. They offered very detailed information and presented it in an easy to read and generally understandable format. I would agree that the books' "intermediate" difficulty rating is accurate.

However, (You knew that this was coming) I would not recommend them as a good prep for the A+ Exams. My principal criticism is that the core module is riddled with flaws, errors, and innacuracies.(One can obtain a list of corrections, all three pages, from the Sybex website. The corrections are listed under "errata"). Additionally, because these texts are fairly detailed, they tended to include a lot of extraneous information that was not reflected on the exams. Examples would be the complete resistor color code, hexadecimal numbering system, lists of various manufacturers beep codes and error codes specific to a particular make or model. Also in the core text are chapters on networks & customer service, neither of which is even covered of the core exam. (O.K., customer service is covered but the answers are not scored and they do not count towards your score).

Dos/Windows...not much better. A lot of step by step by step on how to install windows 3.1 & Win 9x. "When the next screen asks for disk 4, remove disk 3 from your floppy drive, insert the disk labled #4...press any key or enter! See diagram below!)

I would look for a more concise text and then supplement it with internet resources like cramsession and its related links for a more complete test prep.

Most technical books have a certain level of innacuracy due to the fact that nobody's perfect. This book is riddled with them. Most of them are cases of a schizophrenic book contradicting itself. About half of the errors can be found at Sybex's website. A person serious about studying for any certification should get study guides from at least two different perspectives. By this I mean two different books, not one book with two different personalities.

Sybex is well known for high quality publications. How did this one get past your technical editors? It only seems to get worse with newer revisions.

This is a great set, but watch out for mistakes! It covers everything in great detail. The CDs have the same questions as inside the books.

David Groth is an excellent writer and has produced a well written and informative study guide for both the hardware and operating system tests. However --

The CD-ROM that accompanies the text is just horrible. In the practice objective tests, of 150 questions in the first two sections, 42 gave the wrong answer!!! In many instances, the answer was in the form of "select all that apply" yet the software would only accept one selection.

Often the corrected answers were inconsistant with logic, such as the correct answers are "A" and "D" where "D" is "All of the above"!!

Many of the questions are poorly worded, with multiple interpretations available. Many times the multiple choice answers did not match the question at all.

Worst of all - the example tests did not match the CompTIA test. Of the hundreds of example questions in the book and on the CD-ROM, not one question matched the actual exam - or even came close.

Shop around - there are much better study guides available.

My first thoughts when reading these two A+ study guides were, "Are the A+ exams really going to be this superficial?" (They weren't.) It's as though the books was targeted to an "Introduction to PCs" adult education class, rather than serious PC technicians. My second thoughts -- especially while reading the DOS/Windows guide -- were, "Why are there so many errors, especially in the sample questions?" Even so, the sample questions were the best parts of the guides. I ended up getting the Prep Technologies testing software to make sure of the level of test questions to expect. It was a worthwhile purchase (and some of the same questions were on my exams.) Shortly before I took the exams, I stumbled across the new Coriolus A+ Exam Prep book which is intended for the new A+ exams in July. Now THAT is a quality study guide! If you're expecting to take the new exams after they come out in July 98, definitely get the Coriolus book and skip the Groth books altogether. Besides being too supercial, they won't cover important new topics. Oh, yes, I passed the tests with 91 and 95, respectively.

I took an A+ class and this was the book used. I wish I'd read the reviews here first. What a waste of money! I took the exam today and failed. I felt like I'd read the wrong book. Nothing I studied was on the exam except IRQs. Too bad the customer service questions don't count.

I passed both of my A+ exams the first time out using these books and only 6 hours of ILT (instructor-led training)! Since then, I've become an MCSE and have had an opportunity to use various study guides in my "quest" for certification. A bit of advice: There is no one "perfect" book for any of these exams. Books are written from an author's perspective; meaning that each and everyone deserves credit for sharing their knowledge. Personally, I applaud any author who stands up to the challenge of writing computer technical manuals to meet the demands of the computer public. While this set of books may not be perfect, I was able to understand what the author was trying to get across to me. Although the questions on the real exam were not verbatim to the ones found at the end of each chapter in the Sybex books (as apparently many people would have them), I was able to deduce, reference and apply the concepts learned to get a successful pass. Also from a career changer's perspective, having the DOS/Windows and the Core information in two separate books was crucial in helping me to organize and prepare for the exams. Thanks Sybex!

This kit is full of serious errors that go beyond mere sloppiness and involve fundamental ignorance of the subject matter. For just one example, consider this howler taken from the Core Module book at page 114: "Most error checking done today uses checksumming, unless only a basic communication check is required. For example, parity is used in the case of modem communications, because these transfers are relatively slow to begin with. If modems used checksumming instead of parity, modem communications would be too slow to be a viable means of telecommunications." A reader who had knowledge of PCs and modems would recognize the quoted passage as nonsense. But a beginner, far from learning anything about modem communications, would significantly increase his ignorance. This book has a number of gross errors of this type, as well as many, many smaller errors. It is not an accurate or trustworthy source of information. What a shame that a well respected publisher like Sybex would allow its name to be associated with a book of this quality. If you want to learn reliable information about PCs, get some other book -- any other book. You can hardly do worse than this one.

I read both the Core Module and the Win/Dos Book. Both were very easy to read and easy to comprehend. I got a very good total understanding of what was going on inside my computer. I felt I was getting bogged down with the length of these books, so to finish off my review I bought the A+ for dummies book. Together they worked fine, I passed both tests on my first sitting. What I was really surprised about is the amount of wrong information contained in this book! If I had only studied from this, I don't know what would have happened. I would never have been aware of the real answers. There also seem to be several other books out there with the same content, at a much lower price.

Better luck next time David.

Theresa

Reading both these books helped in understanding printers and hardware more so than I already did. I have been fixing computers for ten years and these books, did have some errors, but overall where a very big help in passing both exams. Which I passed both on the same sitting, first try!