7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Covers Everything, November 2, 2009
This review is from: CompTIA A+ Complete Deluxe Study Guide: Exams 220-701 (Essentials) and 220-702 (Practical Application) (Hardcover)
This books is absolute. It comes everything in the A+ exam while also helping its readers understanding the concept behind the topics tested, not just making sure you pass.
CDs that come with the book a excellent including a PDF version of the book, which is handy for when I travel.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Helped me to pass the 2009 A+ cert. I recommend this book., March 11, 2010
This review is from: CompTIA A+ Complete Deluxe Study Guide: Exams 220-701 (Essentials) and 220-702 (Practical Application) (Hardcover)
I recommend this book for anyone interested in preparing for the new 2009 A+ certification. I was able to pass both exams with high scores. There were only few errors on the CD-ROM but everything else was fine. It is a little lacking on Vista so I would recommend future readers to play around with a Vista machine to supplement their learning. You should also take some practice tests (i.e. - Transcender) and work on acquiring some real hands-on experience. Just be forewarned that some of these practice tests are riddled with errors so be careful what you read. It seems some of these companies rush things into production quickly without any care to detail on editing. Hopefully, this will be resolved in the near future but overall the practice tests were helpful. If you are lacking in experience, try building several machines from scratch and try helping regular people with their general PC problems. This will help you to think like a technician and help you to understand some of the concepts mentioned in the book. If you are still lost in a particular concept, just do a Google search and research the topic. Also, make sure you download the latest exam objectives directly from CompTIA's website as these can change at any time and focus on those items while taking practice tests. Good luck to all and study hard.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Useful, but not all it should be, August 13, 2010
This review is from: CompTIA A+ Complete Deluxe Study Guide: Exams 220-701 (Essentials) and 220-702 (Practical Application) (Hardcover)
I bought this along with the Pearson Exam Cram by David L Prowse for my A+ self study and certification.
Good points:
Covers a great deal of material in good detail.
Includes good visual aides.
Includes several practice tests which were very helpful in determining when I was ready to take the test and pass.
Bad Points:
Covers a lot of material which was not on the objectives for the 220-701 and 220-702 exams. It seems like they just took material for the 600 series exams and updated it. As a result, there is a fair amount of information which isn't needed added in. That said, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are still some 9x machines and older machines out there, and a little extra knowledge is a good thing.
Errors - I am very glad I bought multiple books. There were several cases where I ran into contradictory information between this and the Pearson book, did some research, and found this book to be in error. That said, if you took this book, memorized it, made the errors it does, and took the test, you would still pass easily.
Bugs - The software included has some bugs. There were some cases where the practice tests were buggy and it would for example, include part of the text from the previous question's explanation in the question box for the next question. Similarly, there were a couple questions where it was just plain wrong. I distinctly remember one where the correct answer IPCONFIG /ALL was not included in the answer options. Instead, when I clicked the show answer button, it had IPCONFIG /RENEW listed as answer C on the actual test, but said that IPCONFIG /ALL was correct in the show answer box.
Difficult to start with - I started my studies with this book, but struggled with the materials because it does not define the terms it uses clearly in some cases. So, for technologies I was not already familiar with at a basic level, I struggled. I would call this my fault to a degree, but my solution was to go to through the Pearson book first, which explained things much better. I could then go through this book and get a full understanding since the Pearson book I used was just an exam cram and doesn't cover the full set of objectives in significant detail.
So, I gave it 3 stars. Useful, but it dropped the ball too many times for me to recommend it.
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