7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly thorough Practice Questions set, October 28, 2010
This review is from: CompTIA A+ 2010 Complete Home Study (A+ Fast Pass) (Kindle Edition)
This item is an under-priced/bargain jewel for A+ exam prep. It is spot-on for insight into what the real exam is like. Be warned there are loads of practice questions, way more than other practice test books. Give ample time to work through them all... it pays off.
As you know, various texts and practice questions may or may not mate up with the actual test 100% and can cover material in different styles and emphasis. Working through this immense set of problems made the real test a breeze. I felt like I had already taken the real thing. One can iron out the questions that feel like a "judgment call" and cause frustration because this practice set gives the implicit insight into the "tester's perspective".
I personally used Sybex
CompTIA A+ Complete Certification Kit(Exams 220-701 and 220-702) but the full kit was overkill (just the primary book would suffice), supplemented with a quick read of
Mike Meyers' CompTIA A+ Certification Passport, Fourth Edition (Exams 220-701 & 220-702). (Looking back, I would have personally preferred just the
CompTIA A+ 2009 In Depth for its solid coverage and used it as a single "content source") To top it off, I bought my exam vouchers via calarttech.com which afforded me free access to their online courses as well. Even after all that, it is Connor's practice questions that truly honed my knowledge & confidence to pass the test.
For someone with solid prior experience just looking to "prove it" on the exam, Connor's practice questions would likely be all you require to be "test ready" for the A+ on top of prior knowledge. For a self-study, it eliminates the need for the "two book" approach (which I would otherwise tend to recommend especially for a beginner). It blows other A+ "practice question" books out of the water (the others I used were a waste by comparison and cost me more $ than this one). I really can't recommend it enough.
Three items to be aware of: First, the "content portion" of the book is just quick overview/review, perfect for a "last day refresher" prior to exam (use another book for learning phase if that is what you desire). A "just pass the test" approach is also amazingly doable with this book if that is your tact (arguably a good way to get a foot in the door for work/training... which is what Connor's series are aimed at helping folks with). Second, it is a slight inconvenience that answers immediately follow the question since Kindle won't scroll line-by-line. I just held a paper over my computer screen while reading. Nonetheless, this was highly preferred to an appendix for answers, since immediate feedback facilitated "learning by testing" for me. If this content were in in "test software" form, it would be ideal. Lastly, there is not an explanation for answers. Just review the ones you miss (or guessed right) if the rational of the answer doesn't sink in (it usually does)! Amazingly, you end up learning implicitly by working through the huge problem set.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
nice book for reviewing, November 23, 2010
This review is from: CompTIA A+ 2010 Complete Home Study (A+ Fast Pass) (Kindle Edition)
You should finish at least one other A+ guide book before reading this one. This book is more like a whole lots of notes
that you would use to refresh your memory. If you have never read other books before, you'll be very confused with
all the dry facts this book throws you.
And, this book has no Table of Contents, don't get lost...
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Out of Date and Illegible, June 1, 2011
This review is from: CompTIA A+ 2010 Complete Home Study (A+ Fast Pass) (Kindle Edition)
I did not finish reading this book, but from what I did read, this is the right book to read if you want to fail your A+ exam and waste your time.
When studying for an expensive and important exam you need the best materials available, and while this book has gotten some great reviews, I put the book down when it started talking about Pentium chips and 2GHz computers being the norm. First of all, this is completely out of date, and second of all this is supposed to be an informative guide for IT professionals - and yet it starts off with misleading layman's terms and glossing over important issues such as how and why processors have the speeds that they do. If you ignore cores, memory caches, bus speeds etc. for chips and just talk about the GHz you might as well never move past an entry level position in retail.
On a Kindle note: The pictures used to explain the material were illegible - the author relies upon the piecemeal graphics to explain the ideas and advance the text.
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