Customer Reviews

A+ Certification Exam Guide

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I would recommend this book to anyone planning to study for the A+ test. I studied using this book, Exam Cram and the Dummies book. This book offered detailed explanation on many complex aspects of computers. This book is written so that a person with an average understanding of computers is able to pick it up, read it and understand clearly what the author is conveying. The Exam cram book was useful after this one because it is written in far more advanced terminology and has less details. The Dummies book was on the other side of the spectrum, having too few details and not covering many complex aspects. Of all the Books I have seen to help prepare for the A+ test this one is definitely the best and should help anyone learn more about computers and how they operate. (I passed the Comptia test with 89% correct as a result of this book)

You don't have to spend thousands to become A+ Certified. In fact, you've just stumbled on one of certifications best kept secrets, Mike Myers "A+ Certification." PC guru Mike Myers has a nack for simplicication. He is one of the few technical writers who must have actually taken English in school. His insight and wit makes for easy, understandable reading without overwhelming the reader. His seasoned writing style keeps "Techno-babble" to a minimum while keeping substantive. The many pictures and photos keep the reading synchronized and easy to follow.

Most importantly, the book contains 2 CD-ROMs that give mock A+ tests and a reference. Since this book covers both A+ tests (Hardware/Software & DOS/Windows), the reader can resource any specific information the CD-ROMs without the book. This makes the book very convenient!

The only question Mike Myers' book leaves you with is what to do with all the money you saved by NOT going to an expensive tech school?

I suggest buying Mike Myers A+ Certification for anyone inspired to become A+. This book works!

I have been a technician for about 3 years, but realized that the A+ exam doesnt really test you on things you need to know. This book was all I used to study for it with. I read through it once, then scheduled my exam for 3 weeks away. It has 20 chapters so I read 1 chapter a night till the exam. I finished the core exam in 14 minutes with a 96 and the Windows/DOS in 19 minutes with a 93. The lady said she had never seen a score that high in that quick of time. This is the only book you need. Period.

This book, overall is good and effective. It does a good job of teaching the concepts behind the facts, which makes them easier to learn, and allows you to make better practical use of your knowledge, however, the book is not perfect for the A+ certification exams. Using this book, in addition to "braindump" web sites I found, in addition to my personal experiences computing (I have no professional experience, but have done upgrades and such to my PC for many years), I was able to pass the test, scoring 79 percent on the "Core" portion, and 89 on the DOS/Win portion (65 and 66 percent were the scores required to pass, respectively.)

My primary complaint with this book is that it goes into much greater detail at points than is really necessary, such as going through painstaking detail of all the settings in the MSDOS.SYS file, and listing all the HP LaserJet error codes. This would be good if Meyers made it clear what would likely be asked on the test, and what wouldn't, allowing the book to serve as a good reference guide for pratical PC troubleshooting, ect., while still functioning well as a study guide.

I thoroughly studied this book, using the system recommended by Meyers, and I still didn't do exceptionally well, although I did pass by a fairly comfortable margin. There is a good deal of information that is not in the book, and I think I might have failed, had it not been for the braindump sites that allowed me to focus on the more important issues to study.

The accompanying cd rom is fairly good, but shares the same pros and cons as the book: while it has useful shareware tools for actually working on a PC, that doesn't help you pass the test. It doesn't come with very many practice questions, but the questions that came with on the cd seemed fairly close to what is asked on the exam... one annoyance, however, is that you can't view your score unless you have a printer connected to the PC (but you don't have to print your results to view them.) Fairly quirky if you ask me, but better than nothing I suppose.

So, in summary, if you are looking to learn the necessary knowledge and skills to become a PC technician, this is a pretty good book to buy, regardless of whether or not you're studying to become A+ certified... however, if you are preparing for the A+ test, I personally wouldn't recommend relying solely on this book. Groth's Exam Cram is supposed to be fairly good. The aforementioned "braindumps" are good as well, but watch out for incorrect answers on those web sites. They are good to finding out what is on the test, but don't put TOO much faith in the answers given.

Buy this book if you want to pass the exam.Read the book once and got the additional 500 questions that are on the cd.I have to say those questions without a doubt helped me pass the exam without a problem.Highly recomend

I read this book from cover to cover and passed both tests the first time. I do not think he went into enough detail on what is actually on the test, and too much detail on what is not. If he had only marked the sections that were "optional" material, I would have been able to read it much faster. Also, there were many obvious mistakes in his facts and examples, but maybe his newer version takes care of that. I also used the Cramsession website.

Mike Myers did one thing when he wrote this tome. He made A+ Certification obtainable for complete idiots. If you want to become certified, and are on a budget, buy this book and read it 4 or 5 times through until it is burned in your mind.

Now, if you are wanting A+ Certification status and are NOT on a budget. Buy this book, and assemble your own computer as you go. Trust me, you'll make enough mistakes, and really have a feel for what you are reading.

If this book is used this way, it makes more sense. The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was because there were some typos, and the modem AT command set he included was wrong. (Go to 3coms site and download that.)

Go to your local used PC store and buy Win 3.11 and MS DOS 6.22. Feel what it is like to use that horrible Windows version....

All in all. But this book if you want to BE a tech AND have a certification to boot. Buy another book if you only want the funky blue certificate.

This is reference book. But first, you must down load and correct all the Errata. If you have several months to study, then this will help not only with the exam but will increase your knowledge. Otherwise if you are short on time and want to just pass the exam then get a book that gets to the point and does not contain all he extra stuff. Also, this is an outdated book 98. If you must have this then, get the other All in one by the same author ISBN: 0072122668. And let's get this straight, the CompTIA exam format is changing on the 7/28 to adaptive but not the contents. That changes at the end of the year.

The book is clearly written that is very easy to understand. Although there are some mispelled words but no big deal. I took the test and passed them both the first try. Good job Mr. Meyers, I will try your Network + book.

This book was great as far as prepping me for the A+ exam. When I began to delve deeper, however, many facts listed in this book contradicted stuff I found in other books. Upon further researching many of these contradictions, I found that it was usually this book that was incorrect. Most of the things were pretty minor, like saying TCP/IP stands for Terminal Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (it's Transmission Control...). But I became very confused at many statements like some of his IDE performance quotes which switched between Megabits/second and Megabytes/second, his stating that RAID level 1 degrades performance (two other books I checked stated the opposite), and many others (not to mention those that I didn't catch). I appreciate Meyers' attempt to make his book all-inclusive, but contradictions like this only confuse and frustrate those who are trying to learn more than just what is needed to pass the A+ exam.

On the positive side, the book is an easy read and can easily help you pass the exams. If that's all you want, this book is better than anything else I've seen. Just don't take it to be the final word on the subject.