Customer Reviews

A+ Certification Practice Questions Exam Cram 2 (Exams: 220-301, 220-302)

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

 

 

220-301 and 220-302 are the latest creation from CompTIA to hit the certification arena. Exam Cram has made a reputation of releasing material tailored to the exam. The set of over 1000 questions is a great learning and study tool for both exams.

As an instructor this book provided an invaluable tool to aide the student to pass both exam, first by giving them 1000+ question to work with and second being right on the mark with the actual exam.

This book tackles each domain of both exams very well and hit the target right on the head. The author has literally blown away the exam with this one. What I like about this book is that there is more than questions and answers.

The book had pictures and the answers are well explained. Overall for any new A+ tech this should be in your tech library.

I will be honest - I've got about 3 years on the job experience in tech support and I was required to pass A+ as a condition of my current employment. So, I got this book because it had the same goal: pass the test and be done with it. It does it make it quite clear that the authors do not expect this will be your only resource for taking the test. For me, it's all I used (in addition to my hands-on experience). I passed my tests last Friday by a decent margin, and I have to admit that a lot of the questions I saw were practically lifted from the book. My understanding is that those who wrote it have all taken the test and are familiar with the questions asked.

There were several times when I wanted to throw the book down and scream - at CompTIA, not the authors. The book is very honest about the fact that the test is deceptive and almost designed to make you fail, by giving you misleading information and sometimes asking questions where none of the answers (or all!) are right, but you have to pick the most likely one. Fortunately, on the test no question was THAT bad, so in that regard it was a useful preparation, as I was ready for pretty much anything.

No book will replace personal experience, so I recommend you to have opened some computers, maybe even built one or two, and done a lot of tinkering with them before sitting down for this. There was still a lot of technical information I've never learned in this book, though, so it has its merits.

Pros:
*Good price
*Attempts to cover a lot of information even if it's not all thorough
*Lots of practice questions
*If you have worked with computers a lot, you really don't need another book, even if some of the concepts are new.
*I liked the humor sprinkled throughout; it makes drudging through 800 pages of computer information a little easier on the ol' noggin.

Cons:
*Discount program for the exam ended October 1. I bought this book partly because of the $90 savings on the test, and I bought it at the end of October, having no idea it wasn't even valid anymore. That they would discontinue it while the book was on the shelf bothers me a lot, and writing to the publisher regarding this never received a response.
*Some questions I saw on the test had zero mention in the book, so it is not comprehensive.
*The practice exams in the book are OK; the questions on the CD are really just for review, because to do a proper test it seems like you have to buy an upgraded version. Still, 210 questions per test was useful (just on the CD).

Basically, if you have some experience with computers, and can make educated guesses on some questions, you should be OK with this book. A passing score really isn't that high, so you don't need to feel like you should know everything there is to know. If you are going for A+ without field experience, do not use this book by itself, and definitely do some work with computers so you are not scratching your head while reading this.

I read this book from front to back and found several mistakes--answers that were confusing or incorrect. It was called to the author/publishers attention and only a few of the initial mistakes were corrected. I am still waiting on the remainder of the errata to be corrected. It does cover a great deal of what you would expect to be on the test and the explanations, when they were correct, were helpful.

I got this book for free, so I can't complain too much, but don't rely on this solely to prepare for the exam. I didn't read the book (I had another to work off of), but I wanted to make use of the CD that comes with it with the practice exams. The exams are so full of errors that at times I'm not sure if what I'm answering as correct is really correct. I will answer a question, be told I'm wrong, yet be told I'm right in the explanation section. Some correct answers are just plain wrong. The good thing about it is that you get a LOT of questions to practice from, unlike some other practice exams. However, with that many errors, is it worth it? I'd supplement if I were you.

I have already passed the A+ exam, but many of my students have used this Practice Question product and they have enjoyed exam success by making this part of their study plans. The book is intended to be a practice vehicle. Note that even in the book's intro it tells you to only use this book as a practice vehicle. If you find that you are not understanding the concepts and items covered in the practice questions, you do need other study items. No publisher can give you questions identical to what is on the exam. That's called cheating. I have reviewed the questions myself, and they truly help you review the critical items for the exam. This book is intended for content REVIEW, not as a guarantee that you will pass the exam.

Though the book is a good review, it seems to jog wildly off topic for a typical exam cram. My idea of an exam cram is just the information you need to pass the exam. I'm not interested in a history lesson of PC technologies or in-depth discussions of signalling that isn't covered on the exam and isn't used except by hardware engineers.

Secondly, there are many errors, particularly the wireless section which has some serious errors. For example, the book says that 802.11b uses FHSS and 802.11g uses DSSS. This is clearly false. 802.11b uses DSSS, and 802.11g uses OFDM. There are no excuses for these types of errors.

This book is a good, high-quality resource. I think it helped me a lot with preparing for the A+ certification. However, I don't think the book has enough questions. Another resource I used was a book named A+ Questions that you can get at http://www.lulu.com/content/59032 which has like over 2,000 questions in it. I recommend that one, as well.

I just took and [barely] passed my A+ Hardware and OS exams and this book certainly helped but it's not enough. The test asks many questions not covered in this book. I can't recommend an alternative since I haven't reviewed all the literature, but I believe I only passed because I happen to be a Macintosh technician who has encountered PC/peripheral/network problems over the years.

This book is repetitive and does have some mistakes. In some places, the author says there is only one correct answer to a question, but in the explanation, says that there are several. The explanations sometimes contradict the answers. This can be frustrating as you would need another book to confirm the information in this one.

Overall, the book is fine, but I would suggest supplementary reading or testing websites.

I found this to be a nice review. Unlike the previous reviewer, I used more than one source for study because not every book will cover every topic. Also, I just don't feel like a practice questions book alone is the best vehicle to purchase if I am going to only use one resource to study with. Practice questions are there for practice, but a study guide will give you more depth. The A+ Exam Cram 2 is a nice study guide to use, BTW. Overall, I am happy with the product.

Great series of books. Very helpful in passing the A+ exam. Delivered exactly as promised. I would definately recomend this to anyone!