A+ Certification: Concepts and Practices (Text & Lab Manual) (4th Edition) (Hardcover)

by Charles Brooks (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A+ Certification is the crucial first step in developing the knowledge, ability, and skills currently demanded by the computer industry. By the year 2004, more than 800,000 new computer technician jobs will be created and most employers will require the industry standard A+ Certification.

The MARCRAFT/PRENTICE HALL ADVANTAGE: This superbly written and illustrated text and lab has been used by educators and corporations to train over 300,000 students and technicians. It's loaded with the information needed to pass the latest A+ Certification exam.

Here's why Marcraft/Prentice Hall's A+ Certification Program is the best:

• It's comprehensive. Covers A+ competencies in an easy-to-read text.
• It's hands-on. 44 universal lab exercises covering practical theory and troubleshooting and diagnostic techniques. (30% of the missed questions on the A+ certification exam pertain to troubleshooting and diagnostic understanding.)
• It's fully illustrated. Over 600 step-by-step illustrations.
• It's adaptable. Interactive CD-ROM offers flexibility both for the instructor and the student. It runs as an instructor-facilitated or self-study program.
• Lots of options. Marcraft also offers a number of learning tools including state-of-the-art full tower Pentium trainers with the latest technician-level diagnostic software and hardware, and a universal hardware/software fault kit designed to develop realistic troubleshooting skills.
• Test-tip feature.
• Electronic Reference Shelf for more in-depth "How it Works" information.

This training guide gives you easy access to content areas and to the examGear simulation software included on the CD-ROM. examGear is a custom-developed set of functioning software applications that work in conjunction with the A+ Certification text.

The text, lab, and examGEAR provide you with the following:

• Exam tips are gained from hands-on lab exercises.
• Study strategies help you study smarter.
• Step-by-step exercises walk you through key learning tasks.
• Review questions gauge your retention at the end of each chapter.
• Electronic version of the textbook provides quick searches and compact, mobile study.
• examGEAR software stimulates the exam situation you will encounter at the test center.
• Practice exams provide a complete exam that puts your study to the test.

--This text refers to the Product Bundle edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1440 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 4 edition (August 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131144189
• ISBN-13: 978-0131144187
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,000,133 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A+ Certification : Conceps and Practice review, August 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A+ Certification: Concepts and Practice (Paperback)

This book is used by my current college computer maintance class. The book itself is very informal, but the software that is attached cost money to activate. Of cource at our college, we have software already on the computer, but the company that made this book should not give a free cd when you must pay to look at the information on the cd. I gave this book three stars because the information in the book is excellent. The book and practice guide have very good information dealing with passing a+ certification, and are good resources when dealing with upgrading, or even just building a brand new computer out of parts. I am a computer programmer, and most of the programming books along with a+ certification books give a freeware version of the program. So, if you are not up for spending even more money on this book and software, then this is not the book for you.

4.0 out of 5 stars A+ Certification Concepts and Practices (stand-alone), February 22, 2002

By	"e_hunt" (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A+ Certification Concepts and Practices (stand-alone) (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

This is an Instructional Design marvel... The text is oversize, crammed with excellent and superior illustrations of more than 50 diagrams and screenshots per chapter. This is integrated into an electronic study guide. The electronic book is exactly the same material as your print book so you can take it to work or along on a business trip too. The study guide includes questions for review and an adaptive test simulating a certification exam. The electronic test, study guide and images use only 12MB in nicely organized fashion that I find useful going beyond self-learning. I'll replace our Mike Myers book in our training programs with this one. The only shortcoming I can report is that there isn't any video with the course. I used Mike Myers for our vocational training because of his great book that is integrated with a lab manual and video series. This is as good and put together the two are a marvel.

The course is laid out in the CompTIA A+ fashion, as are most A+ books now. It can be divided easily into core hardware or OS and the electronic version supports this for study and exam prep.

There are excellent hands-on exercises and in fact, this is an excellent supplement for those that are short on hands-on real world skills. If your only reason to buy it is, for building or upgrading, look elsewhere... but, if you want certification and to deepen hands-on skills... then this course is wonderful.

For instructors, the course images come in a data folder, the integrated test and text do all the prep work and you can concentrate on labs for building, repair, upgrades, and maintenance. I use the Mike Myers video series with some of his labs and others that I've created. Next, I'll integrate this text and electronic study guide with exam gear...