From the #1 Name in Professional Certification

Get on the fast track to becoming CompTIA A+ certified with this affordable, portable study tool. Certification training guru Mike Meyers will guide you on your career path, providing expert tips and sound advice along the way. With an intensive focus on only what you need to know to pass the CompTIA A+ Essentials and 220-602 tests, this certification passport is your ticket to success on exam day.

Featuring:

• Itineraries--List of official exam objectives covered
• ETAs--Amount of time needed to complete each lesson
• Travel Advisories--Expert advice on critical topics
• Local Lingo--Concise definitions of key terms and concepts
• Travel Assistance--Recommended resources for more information
• Exam Tips--Common exam pitfalls and solutions
• Checkpoints--End-of-chapter questions, answers, and explanations
• Career Flight Path--Career options mapped out to maximize the return from your IT journey

Practice Exams on CD:

• Four complete practice exams
• A new collection of Mike's favorite shareware and freeware PC tools and utilities
• An electronic book

 

Average Customer Review: ( 64 customer reviews )
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This book presents a decent overview of the CompTia A+ exam objectives, but lacks sufficient detail to actually pass the test without supplementing the material. I have provided 2 recommendations at the bottom of this review.

The book covers both areas of the exam (hardware and OS), and provides a CD with tice tests. I noticed the review questions at the end of each chapter lacked worthwhile explanations, which necessitated searching through the text to figure out why you may have missed a particular question.

This book overall presents a decent, but minimal, overview of both the hardware and operating system exams and should be used in conjunction with Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" classic (ISBN: 0789727455), and Exam Cram's book (ISBN: 078983043x).

12 of 13 found the following review helpful:

Good Review Book for Experienced Computer TechsJun 05, 2002
By Kye
Mike Meyers' A+ Certification Passport is mostly useful for experienced computer technicians who know the information already but need to refresh their understanding of certain topics or memorize specific information before taking CompTIA's A+ exams. That said, this book only covers the very basics of computer hardware and software as it applies to the A+ exams. For a more in depth understanding of the subject matter refer to Mike Meyers' All-In-One Certification Guide.

Good Points About the Book:
- Short to the point chapters that can be read and understood within an hour's time.
- Alerts and sidebars that inform the reader to issues stressed or not stressed in the A+ exams
- Easy to read, conversational style relation of the material that helps move the reader along from topic to topic.
- No overblown explanations or analogies of any topic.
- Included CDRom that contains practice tests for both the software and Hardware exam. (Many online resources are also available via the Internet. Just do a search for "COMPTIA FREE TESTS" at your favorite Internet Portal to find them. Careful, some sites are much better than others.)

Bad Points About the Book:
- Useless travel theme that does nothing to aid the reader.
- Objectives of the CompTIA test are not laid out for the reader within the chapters as one might expect from a "Cram" book like this. (Go to CompTIA's web sit for more information about exam objectives)
- Unless you are an experienced computer tech this book will not prepare you for the exam.
- No cram sheet included with the book for last minute preparation. Why?

Again, I am awarding the 4 starts because it is a good refresher for an experienced computer technician, newbies should look more in depth books and get lots of hands on training before attempting the real tests.

If and when you are confident that you are ready for the actual tests, take the provided practice exams. If you can score 75 to 80 percent correct the first time you take both practice tests you will very likely pass the real exams. Notice I wrote the first time. If you fail the practice tests the first time you take them, be sure not to review the answers to the questions. If you failed them, you were not ready to take the tests so reviewing the answers will ruin the effectiveness of the practice exams for when you need to come back to them.

Good Luck

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:

Smaller Because It Covers LessMar 02, 2002
By Richard McLaurin
After being disappointed by the "A+ Complete Study Guide" book (see my review there), I picked up this book. Immediately I saw in it the answers to three questions I had missed when taking the hardware exam for the A+ certification, such as the cable required for the latest EIDE hard drives. This book is definitely more up to date.

It didn't take long to cruise through the well written chapters on operating systems technologies. It was very pleasing to feel that I was ready to take the second part of the A+ exams so quickly. I scored an average of 86 on the end of chapter practice tests, reviewed all the chapters again and then scored higher.

Then, I pulled out the includeded practice exam CD and took the test there. I scored a 56%! What happened!

Here's what happened, most of questions asked weren't covered in the book. Or, it appears this way. I can't tell for sure since the book's index is weak and there is no searchable copy of the book on the CD. Here are a couple examples. Yes, the book talks about MEM.EXE and it role, but says nothing about its options. Nor does it talk about the FDISK options available. Yet, questions about these options are on his practice exam. More importantly, I found these types of questions on the A+ test.

Did I pass the test? Yes, scored an 804 (600 is passing). In order to do so, I went into the web and took every practice exam I could find. These exams give answers and often explanations. I doubt just taking the exams themselves would enable anyone to pass the test as they do not provide the foundation knowedge needed that the book provided. However, the exams will bring to light all the smaller things that the book just breezes past. I spent as much time on these exams as I spent in reading the book. That is what it took to get me to the point where I was scoring decently on the exams.

The book just does not cover the material in the depth required.

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:

Excellent prep book before taking A+ examAug 24, 2002

If you frequent any of the IT forums on the net, you will find that the name of Mike Meyers is often mentioned in the matter of A+. There is a reason why folks and his A+ Passport lends credence to his already impressive line of books. I found the A+ Passport to be an excellent primer before taking the A+ exams. Included with the book is ExamWeb's A+ testing software on a CD. I found the questions to be on the easier side of things so reader's may want to look into finding online testing resources. In A+ Passport, Meyers covers everything you'll need to know for the exams from printers to connector types and IRQs to SCSI. You will be increasing your chances of successfully becoming A+ certified by reading this book. For those breaking into the IT field, also consider picking up Meyer's meatier text, the A+ All-in-One.

6 of 6 found the following review helpful:

It's OKAug 08, 2007
By Digigear "Digigear"
I wish people would take the tests before rating these books.

My scores are 810/900 and 840/900 for Essentials and 602 respectively. Passing scores are 675 and 700 with 100 being the minimum.

I bought this book and A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Sixth Edition (A+ Certification All in One Exam) by the same author. I also bought the exam vouchers from them which came with 300 practice questions. Both books come with practice questions both in the books and additional ones on the accompanying CDs. However, the CDs and the downloaded questions were mostly repeats and nothing like the actual exams (same goes for the books).

I have over twenty years of tinkering with computers. I was an aerospace engineer and an Oracle database programmer. I just wanted to get this Certification for kicks. There is a lot of fluff in both books which has nothing to do with the exams. Neither book really tells you how the actual exam questions are like. Actual exams are generally much simpler and test you mostly on your broad knowledge rather than the fine details (the exams does not ask which socket Pentium II uses, but it does ask what does a series of long beeps mean after you boot up). If you know the basics and understand the logic, you will pass. You still need to know some details, but they are not the hard ones. There has to be better book out there.

Even though I already knew 80% of the subject matter, I studied real hard. There is more stuff in the other book worth knowing though (not for the test). But personally, fluff puts me to sleep. Just keep it brief and to the point and pertinent to the test, that's what the books are selling.

If you buy these books, make sure you already have some experience in the field and that you really study these books like a text book.

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