A+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide [Hardcover]

Michael Meyers (Author)

Book Description

Series: All-In-One Certification | Publication Date: November 9, 1999

-- Industry endorsement -- This book will carry the COMPTIA logo, the creators of the A+ exam. This endorsement will be displayed prominently on the packaging.
-- CD included -- The Meyers A+ Certification Guide contains a CD with exam preparation questions, and bonus questions that can be purchased separately.
-- What's New?
-- In-chapter exam questions
-- All new exam prep questions on the CD
-- Updated information to covering the new Pentium III technology

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A standout from the usual mass of A+ guides, the A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide is an excellent book for preparation. It takes the welter of complex internal components that make up the modern PC and boils them all down into easily understood concepts.

Let me clarify for the non-English majors out there. Rather than cramming a dizzying list of computer parts down the reader's throat like most A+ guides do, Meyers starts from ground zero and presents the reader with the same sets of problems that faced the original designers of the PC: You have just designed a chip that can handle thousands of calculations per second. Now how do you talk to it? How do you get other components to communicate with it? How do you know when it's listening?

By explaining to you exactly how each part was designed to work with that central processing chip--and why--you not only understand how the PC works without months of rote memorization, but you have the additional advantage of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. In other words, you know where and why things tend to break down. Which is exactly what you want for the A+.

Meyers's explanations are very good, each one building on the previous topics, and there are scads of generally crude but effective illustrations. Another strong point is that Meyers gives you extensive photographs of computer components, jacks, and motherboards for the novice--study this book carefully and you'll never confuse an RJ-11 with an RJ-45 jack again.

If the book can be said to have a minor flaw, it's that Meyers always errs on the side of giving too much information. Rather than having you study for the exam alone, he genuinely wants you to understand how computers work in the real world. (For example, he devotes an entire chapter to electrical concepts and measuring with multimeters simply because he believes that power supplies shouldn't be just thrown away.) Generally this is an admirable approach, except for two notable instances:

• A beginner studying for the A+ exam might be overwhelmed. But relax--if you can get even 75 percent of this book down, chances are you'll pass the exam without a hitch.
• There are times a conceptual take is much more confusing than a simple listing. The chapter on memory management--a complex and oft-overwhelming topic for those of you who weren't trying to get Wizardry III to work on your PCjr in the old days--errs on the side of providing far too much information. Even with a personal background in troubleshooting memory problems for a living, the writing here was still bewildering. However, he does note that memory management isn't a major part of the A+ exam, and that you don't really need to know all of that to pass.

The majority of the book focuses on hardware, but the DOS and Windows chapters are fairly extensive and should be more than enough to help you pass. A minor kvetch here is that, in his efforts to be relentlessly thorough, he'll frequently give you scads of switch options, listed alphabetically, for old programs like SMARTDRV--including many near-useless or currently useless ones. The important options should have been ranked for easier study.

The book has 10 questions at the end of every chapter--they're not modeled after the A+ exam, but they are fairly tough questions nonetheless. There's also a 75-page glossary, four free practice exams on the disk (and an additional 500 that can be unlocked for $79), and--joy!--samples of the many utility programs that Meyers recommends during the course of the book.

This text is highly recommended and an extremely good option for the A+ student--it definitely is an "All-in-One" stop. --William Steinmetz

Review

What we're reading. So you're a tinkerer. Make the move from computer junkie to certified computer service tech and prove you're qualified to "check under the hood." Pick up a copy of Michael J. Meyer's A+ Certification Exam Guide--it's one of the best and most complete A+ study books to be found. (Amazon.com )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 950 pages
• Publisher: Computing Mcgraw-Hill; 2nd edition (November 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072122668
• ISBN-13: 978-0072122664
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (145 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,096,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

141 of 146 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book but not enough, March 18, 2000

By 

D. SHARGEL (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide (Hardcover)

I think this is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn computer hardware but I would recommend supplementing your studying with other material for the actual exam. Study guides and free practice tests available on the Internet will help you focus on what is actually on the exam. Meyers' book goes into much more detail than what is needed for the A+ exams, making review a daunting task if you depend only on this book. The author seems to care more about teaching you something than preparing you for the exam (that is commendable but this is supposed to be geared for the test). To sum up, this is a very well-written book and I learned a great deal from reading it, but it is just way too much too review with. I passed both tests on the first try with good scores but I don't think I would have if I had depended solely on this book. So read this book but use study guides and practice tests for review. By the way, according to the CompTIA site the Dos/Windows exam is changing this spring or summer. They are dropping the Win 3.x info and adding NT, Win98 and Linux. None of which is covered by this book so keep that mind if you don't plan on taking your test before June. Good luck.

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book; Not Just for the Exam; 1 Caution w/ the CD, March 24, 2001

By 

Mark (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide with CDROM (Hardcover)

This third edition of "A+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide" is one of the first (and currently one of the very few) A+ Exam preparation books that cover the new 2001 exam.

In case you are not familiar with the name Michael Meyers, he is major name in PC hardware book authoring. He has a wonderful writing style that makes concepts easy to understand. This book uses excellent analogies and illustrations to further clarify and explain concepts. While the book may appear daunting at 1260+ pages, keep in mind that much of that length is due to the heavy use of illustrations, photos, tables, and screenshots. Remove these extremely helpful and virtually essential items, and I would suspect a book of one-half to two-thirds the size would be the result.

Each chapter concludes with review questions and their answers. While not enough on their own to serve as the only practice exam as part of your exam preparation, they do help considerably to solidify the concepts presented in the chapter, and test your understanding.

One of the major benefits of this book is that is not solely aimed at A+ Exam preparation, but on PC's as a whole. While presenting the material, Meyers identifies and breaks it up into three categories (as explained in the book's introduction):

1) Historical/Conceptual: Material not on the A+ exams, but it is knowledge that will help you understand the material that is on the A+ exams more clearly.

2) Test Specific: Topics that are on the A+ exams.

3) Beyond A+: More advanced issues that most likely will not be on the A+ exams (but would be beneficial additional information).

This categorization of the material makes the book an excellent textbook and subsequent study guide.

This book can easily help anyone learn and understand the material needed for A+ Certification. You will find Myers to be knowledgeable and an easy to read author. I highly recommend this book as your choice for an A+ Exam preparation book.

There is, however, one caveat: The enclosed CD-ROM, which contains practice exams published by Total Seminars, has some bugs. The most prominent one is that the software will (currently) not run on Windows NT or 2000. This fact and other bug related information is available at Total Seminar's web site.... Once you get around these bugs, the testing software is pretty good. Even without the enclosed software, the book is well worth the price.

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ten star rating for a first rate book and author., March 18, 2001

By 

Michael J Woznicki "Michael J Woznicki" (Holland, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide with CDROM (Hardcover)

When I took my A+ tests I used the second edition of Mike Meyers book. This choice was based on a recommendation from several people and I was certainly glad I did. Now that I am a technical instructor there is no doubt as to what I will use on the classroom to help the students pass the newest exam - the third edition.

Mike Meyers is the master of the A+ exam and this book is loaded with more than enough information to pass the exam. After reading through the book I can now understand what made this book one of the most anticipated books, the author simply covers everything in great detail and makes sure you are fully prepared for the exam. About the only thing this book doesn't do is take the exams for you.

Updated to the newest exam, this 1260 page book starts with the breakdown of the pc, moves on to microprocessors, ram, bios and motherboards, buses, power supply, modems, printers, portable computers, storage systems, cd-roms, sound and video.

Thinking you might be done, not even close. Meyers then breaks down operating systems starting off with DOS, and then to Windows 3.X and 9.X. Excellent coverage for NT and 2000 are also a major part of this book. Finally you have coverage of the networking side of things and the information goes far beyond the A+ arena.

Normally this would be enough material and information for anyone, but what separates Mike Meyers from the rest of the pack is the other things his books include. There is review Questions, information beyond the A+ objectives, pictures, figures, tables, screen shots and even a pull out poster of the motherboard.

Every section is detailed yet easy to follow and understand and comprehend. The book includes a cd-rom that has 6 practice tests, if this is not enough you can go to the Total Seminars website and order more. There are video clips, tools and utilities for technicians completing and rounding out what I would say is probably the best and must buy for every technician on any level.