Customer Reviews

CompTIA A+ Complete Study Guide: Exams 220-701 (Essentials) and 220-702 (Practical Application)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is really great it has everything you need to pass the A+ 2009 Objectives. I took my A+ Test two days about and passed. This book covers alot of stuff that you would see on the test believe me when I tell you this. Make sure if you are taking the A+ 2009 objectives that you know your port numbers and what they are for because the test is going to ask you about this. This book really set the tone for the exam so if you want to pass get this book.

After getting 70% on both of the CompTIA "pretests" (you can find them on the CompTIA website), my brother and I purchased this textbook, read it cover-to-cover in 1 week, then we each took both exams on the same day. Here is my impression of the book:

Pros:
1. I learned A LOT of things from this book. I was very impressed both with what I learned, and just what I didn't know.
2. The book is very well written, IMO, and contains quite a bit of humor for what is otherwise a pretty dry topic.
3. Low Cost (considering I saw courses to learn the same material for $600.00).
4. The electronic media that ships with the book is, IMO, invaluable (copy of book, 26 tests, 2 sets of flash cards).
5. There were repeated questions in the electronic tests. Why is this a Pro? -It turns out that this isn't so different from the actual exams

Cons:
1. Having read the entire book, without skipping a page, I didn't find it very helpful on the Practical Application exam. Neither did my brother. What did help, then? -Some of the information related to the Essentials exam, possibly some of the included electronic media, 4 years of IT experience, and a bucket to catch the bullets we sweat during the exam...
2. I am serious about the above con. There were many questions covering topics that were just completely missing from this book. Maybe it just happened that way due to the question sets we received.
3. To a lesser extent, there were many iterations of repeated material in the book. Sometimes it was reiterating important information, which is good, but, other times it seemed to be literally copy and pasting material to other sections.

Final thoughts: We both passed both exams. I scored a 97% on the Essentials exam and 93% on the Practical Application exam. This book was our only study material... It was well worth it.

I bought this to study for A+ certification, and spent about a month going through and outlining each chapter, memorizing all the material. I then took the practice exams which came with the book. The exams were the only flaw since the questions do not change, so if you take them repeatedly you learn the exams, not the material. I went in to take the actual exam, and it was so much easier than the practice exams. I passed both 220-701 and 220-702 after taking each only a day apart. For my next certification I'm definitely using this series again.

This is a comprehensive study guide for all of the A+ objectives and helped me pass 220-701 and 220-702 with scores of 855 and 830 respectively. The Exam Essentials and Review Questions included for each chapter are very helpful, and this book will remain useful as a reference guide later. I found the material on networks to be especially useful. However, there are some annoying problems with the book, starting with the repetition. For example, the topic of the Windows Recovery Console is included in three separate places in the book. Why not just include the topic once, and refer to it where needed? The three authors should work to organize and edit the material better and correct conflicts. For example, the System File Checker (SFC) utility is included twice, with very different lists of parameters. It seems the Windows Vista material was added quickly, especially the discussions about Backup, ASR, and System Management, without enough attention to how it differs from XP. Finally, there are some annoying errors in the review questions and in the exams on the included CD. I submitted many errata items to Sybex so hopefully these problems will be corrected in future editions.

I thought this book was very well written. The material covered in the book is dry, and I feel it is very hard to learn without experience anyway. This book presented the information in a factual way and explained things pretty well. There was some excellent humor in there, I will not spoil it, but I actually laughed while reading it a couple times. I spent about 2 weeks with this book, read through all of it, and did all of the practice exams. I also reviewed all of the flashcards and all of the exams on the CD. The CD was definately not overly impressive, and did have some issues, but it was a nice, easy, quick way to run through practice exams without having to flip between pages of a book and grade your own test, then review the answers. This can proably be said about any book, but I doubt you will be able to pass the exam without other resources. I read an edition of Micheal Myers' A+ book several years ago, which at the time was already over a year old, and with all things being equal (ignoring the differences in technology due to time) I preferred this book over it. I will definately consider Sybex for future certifications.

Another thing, I went through this book and took the essentials and practical exam in the same morning (actually within the same hour) and passed them both with plenty of room to spare. This book covers both exams. I would not recommend it to anyone to take the exams seperately. Once you go through this book, do the exercises, and get some time in front of a computer practicing what you learned (even better, do it all at the same time), I dont think there is any reason why you should take time between the exams. Its just more time to be nervous and worry.

The book is full of good information. It is more than enough to help you pass the exams(it got me passed them). But, the practice exams and the flash cards had discrepancies. Sometimes they had different terms for the same thing or left out a part of the answer. I also saw questions that told you that you were wrong when in fact you were right(you could tell by clicking the answer button and it would explain the answer in detail but still told you that you were wrong when you picked the right answer). I do think that it is still a good study guide but check the answers to the test questions. If something doesn't feel right then maybe it isn't.

Overall, this book left me a bit over-prepared for the A+ exam, which is not a bad thing! My scoring was 846/900 on the Essentials and 820/900 on the Practical Application. I also purchased a second Q&A book, but it was unneeded. If you read this book, and study it well, you will pass with ease.

The test questions at the end of each chapter are well done, and will give you a solid assessment of your understanding of the chapter. There are also "Exam Essentials" at the end of each chapter to make sure you picked up on the important stuff. The book also does a fantastic job of stressing important points.

Well written, easy to read, and I passed. I will be looking to Sybex for my future study needs.

This guide covers both the CompTIA A+ Essentials and A+ Practical exams, with some overlap between the two, the latter being a more in depth approach. Overall, I am very satisfied with the material that is presented and the approach by all three authors. I would almost say it's a bit of information overkill, but like many exams, it's better to go into it knowing more than not knowing enough.

I finished the book after about 5 straight days of reading and took both tests a week apart with primary focus using this book as my foundation for studying. I passed both without much difficulty. If you want to pass the test, this is your ticket to success. I deducted a star because the included exams had a few errors that threw me, however, due to the quality of the material within the book, you find yourself catching these errors off the bat. Next up... Lammle's Sybex CompTIA Network+ and then that exam!

I bought this book as my main training for the 2009 A+ Essentials and 2009 A+ Practical exams. I passed both with a 94% and a 90% respectively. I can say that the book was a big contributor to my successfully passing these exams. The authors thoroughly cover the topics in the exams and correctly emphasize key areas.

Some drawbacks:

- The CD included with the book purports to emulate the exams. The format of the exams is fairly close to the actual exam, but they give you 90 minutes to answer 50 questions. The actual exam gives you 90 minutes to answer 100 questions: a much tighter time frame! The CDs also contained a few obviously incorrect answers, some spelling errors and a few repeated questions. The CD also periodically focuses many questions on a small segment of material, which doesn't give a good feel for an actual exam. It was clear to me that the CD was not as thoroughly reviewed as the written material.

- The authors occasionally fall in to the trap of assuming the reader has knowledge beyond that which they might be expected to have. I also found that the index did not always lead me to a topic where I could learn more material.

- Most importantly: the book alone is unlikely to get you a good grade on this exam. Much of the reason for my good scores was from 2 years of practice on actual machines, interacting with real people, and learning new hardware and operating systems. The exam questions come from such a wide range of topics that even this book is unable to cover them all. I would hope that anyone who takes this exam would have a degree of real-world experience. You should be able to tell if you can pass this exam simply by reading the material in this book: if ALL or most of it is new to you, it's probably better to get some real world practice first. That's the best way to guarantee a passing grade.

This book contains everything that you need to pass A+ BUT NOT FOR WINDOWS 7 OBJECTIVES.!!! COMPTIA updated the exam in January of this year with Windows 7 questions! Get Mike Meyers Windows 7 CompTia supplement or any other material to expose you to Windows 7 basic functionalities. I barely failed both of my tests the first time by like 50 points not for lack of info in the book but just the vast amount of information that they could possibly ask you that I just didn't know well enough. Upon remembering the topics and some of the questions, I could always go back and update my knowledge base with the appropriate information in the text. 2ND time for me has always been a charm in testing for this A+ COMPTIA stuff and I passed both tests the 2nd time around! If you want to pass the A+ Exams USE THIS BOOK but AGAIN USE ALTERNATIVE RESOURCE FOR WINDOWS 7 COMPTIA UPDATES that WILL BE ON THE TEST.