Amazon.com Review
All-in-One A+ Certification Exam Guide is the best and most complete A+ study book available. The hardware information reflects modern equipment, and the Windows/DOS coverage includes Windows 95, which many A+ books neglect (of course it also covers DOS and Windows 3.x, which are still relevant).
Meyers attacks the PC architecture one piece at a time, beginning with the CPU (coverage extends through Pentium II) and continuing through power supplies, RAM (including DIMMs and SO-DIMMs), motherboards (through ATX), and the peripheral bus (covering Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI). The author covers disk drives, including all versions of SCSI through the various implementations of SCSI 3. Video information isn't absolutely current, but is adequate for the exam.
Meyers's coverage of networks includes 100BaseT LANs as well as older systems and TCP/IP. He even pays some attention to Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS), both important when configuring networks of Windows machines.
Photos and cartoons back up Meyers's lucid prose adequately--even the cartoon bubbles emerging from pictures of hardware (showing how the CPU "talks to" the memory, for example) are informative. Some of the conceptual diagrams are a little confusing, but they're in the minority.
One of the most helpful features of this book is a chart that allows you to figure out how much time you should devote to studying each exam component, based on your experience with the topic. Further, the CD-ROM that comes with this book allows you to take exams in "practice mode," where you're given hints and referred to specific chapters for further study. --David Wall
From the Back Cover
Catch the PC Technician career express. McGraw-Hill, the experts in career-boosting guides for Information Technology professionals, now accelerates your mastery of one of the most coveted--and lucrative--professional credentials in the industry; A+ certification. Written by Michael Meyers, a leading PC and network repair authority and teacher, the A+ Certification Exam Guide delivers the clearest and most comprehensive exam preparation available... at much less than you'd pay for a comparable classroom course! Expertly designed for easy comprehension and retention, this 2-in-1 book--at once an in-depth study guide and a handly PC reference that you'll use long after you've passed the exam--delivers the essentials you need to confidently: pass the new, updated 1998 version of CompTIA's A+ certification exam with flying colors; master the fundamentals of PC hardware and DOS/Windows system software; set up and complete a systematic, customized study program for the exam; find answers to questions and understand why they are correct; handle real-world PC hardware and software problems on the job. Plus, to ensure your performance on the exam, this book comes with a CD-ROM that includes: 100 practice questions that cover both the Core and DOS/Windows exams. The practice exams can be taken in either practice or test mode. The CD-ROM even provides book study references to help you "bone up" on questions that you incorrectly answer on the tests; access to upgrade and receive an additional 500 practice questions; dozens of powerful freeware, shareware, and demonstration utilities that PC tech really need!
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