A+ Exam Cram, 1st edition
Authors: James G. Jones, Craig Landes
Venue:  (1998)

From the Book: Introduction Introduction Welcome to A+ Exam Cram! This introduction is very much like the "Quick Setup" reference section for a software application, and we use it to give you some important insights into the exam. The purpose of this book is to get you ready to takeand passthe 1998 Computing Technology Industry Associations (CompTIA) A+ certification exam. In the following pages, weve outlined the CompTIA A+ certification in general, and we talk about how Exam Cram can optimize your knowledge of PCs and focus in on critical exam topics. New job listings often require applicants to be A+ certified, and many individuals who complete the program qualify for increases in pay and/or responsibility. If the job requirements dont require an existing A+ certification, many corporations require that you complete the certification process within 90 days of being hired. This book is aimed strictly at exam preparation and review. It will not teach you everything you need to know about a topic. Instead, it will present and dissect the question topics that youre probably going to see on the exam. Weve drawn on material from CompTIAs own listing of requirements, from other preparation guides, and from the exams themselves. Weve also drawn from a battery of third-party test preparation tools and from our own experience with microcomputers, going all the way back to the Altair. Our aim is to bring together as much information as possible about the revised A+ certification exams. Our explicit purpose in writing this book is to stuff as many facts and technical answers about computers as possible into your brain before you begin the test. The A+ exam makes a basic assumption that you already have a very strong background of experience with PCs, hardware, and Wintel operating systems. On the other hand, we think that microcomputers are changing so fast that no one can be a total expert. We think this book is the most up-to-date analysis of the 1998 A+ exam on the market. Depending on your experience with PCs, we recommend that you begin your studies with some classroom training or that you visit the CompTIA Web site (http://www.comptia.org) for a definition of what it means to be A+ certified. We strongly recommend that you install, configure, and generally "fool around" with the DOS, Windows, and Windows 95 operating environment that youll be tested on. Nothing beats hands-on experience and familiarity when it comes to understanding the questions youre likely to encounter. Book learning is essential, but hands-on experience is the best teacher of all! Perhaps a quick way for you to decide where you stand in relation to the current certification process is to turn to the end of the book and examine the Sample Test (Chapter 12). This is a highly accurate representation of both the test format and the types of questions you will encounter. The New A+ Certification Program The A+ Certification Program has been extensively revised as of July 1998 and now includes two separate exams. You will be required to pass both the PC core module and the DOS/Windows specialty module in order to receive your A+ certification. Additionally, there are a number of questions concerning customer service. Many people feel that the two exams are so closely related that they should be combined into one. Whether or not theyre eventually combined, we recommend you treat the two components as one exam. In fact, we have organized this book as if they were one exam and urge you to sign up for both exams at the same time. Taking both exams in one session saves you money as well. The PC core exam tests your knowledge of microcomputer hardware, including motherboards, processors, memory, peripherals, IRQs, electronics, and buses. The Windows/DOS specialty exam tests your knowledge of the three most widely-used operating systems in the current market. Customer service questions do not have a pass/fail consequence, but they do produce a score notation on your A+ certificate. Thus, potential employers will be able to use your customer service score in an interview and hiring decision. Taking A Certification Exam Unfortunately, testing isnt free. Youll be charged $100 for each test you take, whether you pass or fail. It isnt necessary to take both tests at the same time, but if you do, the discounted cost of the combined tests is $165.00. Note: CompTIA is evaluating the pricing of these tests, and it may change prior to your enrollment in the exam. We are sure the price will not go down, so the sooner you sign up the better. The United States and Canadian tests are administered by Sylvan Prometric. Sylvan Prometric can be reached at 1-800-77MICRO (1-800-776-4276), Monday through Friday, between 7:00 AM and 6:00 PM (Central Time). To schedule an exam, you must call at least one day in advance. To cancel or reschedule an exam, you must call at least 12 hours before the scheduled test time (or you may be charged). When calling Sylvan Prometric, please have the following information ready for the sales representative who handles your call:  Your name, organization, and mailing address  The name of the exam(s) you wish to take (A+ core, and/or DOS/Windows specialty module)  A method of payment The most convenient payment method is to provide a valid credit card number with sufficient available credit. Otherwise, payments by check, money order, or purchase order (PO) must be received before a test can be scheduled. If the latter methods are required, ask your sales representative for more details. Keep in mind that if you choose to pay for your exam by a method that involves the postal service and banking system (i.e., check, PO, etc.), youll have to call to schedule your exam much earlier than one day in advance. Arriving At The Exam Site On the day of your exam, try to arrive at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time slot. You must bring two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID. Typically, a drivers license and credit card are valid forms of identification. Insurance cards, birth certificates, state ID cards, employee iden- tification cards, or any other legal identification can also be used. If youre not sure whether your identification is acceptable, ask the person you schedule your exam with. You will be given a user ID code as an identification number for your test, which you enter in the computer at the time you begin your exam(s). The exam is fully computer based, and is all multiple choice. Ordinarily, your ID number is the same as your Social Security number, though it may be different. Your ID number will be used to track your session. In The Exam Room All exams are completely closed-book. In fact, you will not be permitted to take anything with you into the testing area other than a blank sheet of paper and a pencil provided by the exam proctors. We suggest that you immediately write down the most critical information about the test youre taking on the blank sheet of paper youre given. Exam Cram books provide a brief reference (the Cram Sheet, located in the front of the book) that lists essential information from the book in distilled form. Each question will offer you an opportunity to mark that question for review. We strongly suggest that you mark any questions about which you have any shade of doubt. Each exam offers a generously fair amount of time to complete the questions, and by marking questions for review, you can go back without the pressure of worrying whether youll complete the whole session. The time you take to answer the questions is not factored into scoring your test. Your answers can be changed at any time before you terminate the session, and the review option is not tracked for scoring. Many terms and words are easy to mix up, so take time to review your work. When you complete the exam, the software will tell you whether youve passed or failed. All tests are scored on a basis of 100 points, and results are broken into several topical areas. Even if you fail, we suggest that you ask for (and keep) the detailed report that the test administrator prints out for you. You can use the report to help you prepare for another go-round, if necessary. If you need to retake an exam, you must call Sylvan Prometric, schedule a new test date, and pay another $100 per exam. Certification When youve passed the core and specialty exams, you will be A+ certified. Its a good idea to save the test results you are given at the conclusion of the test, as they are your immediate proof. Official certification normally takes anywhere from four to six weeks, so dont expect to get your credentials overnight. When the package arrives, it will include a Welcome Kit, a certificate (suitable for framing), and an identification lapel pin. As an official recognition of hard work and broad-based knowledge, A+ certification is also a badge of honor. Many organizations view certification as a necessary foundation for a career in the information technology (IT) industry. How To Prepare For An Exam A+ certification requires an extensive range of knowledge about the entire field of microcomputers. Preparing for network certification, Windows 95 certification, aerobics certification, or even driving certification (drivers license) is somewhat simpler. In these cases, the area youre being certified in is a limited subset of everything in that field. A+ certification, on the other hand, has no boundary limitations. Anything at all about a PC is a valid subject for testing! By using this book in your preparation efforts, youll be able to concentrate your efforts on the areas considered to be the most important in understanding PCs. Weve "been there, done that" so to speak, and well point you in the right direction for your studies. At a minimum, preparing for the A+ exams requires a good test guide (this book) and detailed reference materials addressing the information covered on the exams. Weve attempted to make no assumptions whatsoever about your current knowledge and to cram between the covers of the book as much information as possible about PCs. However, our main focus is to get you through the exam. Using the self-study method, you might consider us as virtual tutors, coming to your site at your convenience and stuffing the facts between your ears. In the past, candidates have used many individual reference books that, taken together, cover most of the required material on the exam. This avenue is still open to you, and a good professional should always have a solid reference library as a matter of course. See the "Need To Know More?" sections at the end of each chapter for our lists of recommended references. If you like a little more structure, there are several good programs available in both a self-paced and classroom format. However, you must be sure the program you select has been developed for the revised A+ requirements released in July 1998. Consider too that the cost of structured class instruction is significantly higher than the price of this book. The A+ certification exam is constantly being updated so as to reflect the ever-progressive developments in the microcomputer industry. The best source of current exam information is CompTIAs website at http://www.comptia.org. If you dont have access to the Internet, you can call or write CompTIA directly at: Computing Technology Industry Association 450 East 22nd Street, Suite 230 Lombard, IL 60134-6158 Phone: (630) 268-1818 About This Book Each Exam Cram chapter follows a regular structure, along with graphical cues about especially important or useful material. The structure of a typical chapter includes:  Opening Hotlists Each chapter begins with lists of the terms youll need to understand and the concepts youll need to master before you can be fully conversant with the chapters subject matter. We follow the hotlists with a few introductory paragraphs to set the stage for the rest of the chapter.  Topical Coverage After the opening hotlists, each chapter covers at least four topics related to the chapters subject.  Study Alerts Throughout the topical coverage section, we highlight material most likely to appear on the exam by using a special Study Alert layout that looks like this: This is what a Study Alert looks like. A Study Alert stresses concepts, terms, software, or activities that will most likely appear in one or more certification exam questions. For that reason, we think any information found offset in Study Alert format is worthy of unusual attentiveness on your part. Even if material isnt flagged as a Study Alert, all the content in this book is associated in some way to something test related. The book is focused on high-speed test preparation; youll find that what appears in the meat of each chapter is critical knowledge.  Sidebars When we discuss an exam topic that may be based on common knowledge among people in the IT industry, weve tried to explicitly describe the underlying assumptions of the discussion. You may have many years of experience with PCs, or you may be just starting out. Your certification shouldnt depend on "secret knowledge" that youre supposed to "just know" somehow. Something You May Not Know A sidebar like this is a way to step outside the flow of the discussion to provide you with "insider" information that you may not have heard before. A sidebar is a way to increase the saturation level of your knowledge and apply some "fixative" to help keep topical facts from slipping out of your ears.  Notes This book is part of the overall reference material pertaining to computers. As such, we dip into nearly every aspect of working with and configuring PCs. Where a body of knowledge is far deeper than the scope of the book, we use Notes to indicate areas of concern or specialty training. Note: Cramming for an exam will get you through a test. It wont make you a competent IT professional. While you can memorize just the facts you need to become certified, your daily work in the IT field will rapidly put you in water over your head if you dont know the underlying principles of computers.  Useful Knowledge Tips We provide tips that will help build a better foundation of knowledge. Although the information may not be on the exam, it is highly relevant and will help you become a better test-taker. Many of the Customer Service scenarios, for example, are structured as tips, since the subject matter is so subjective. This is how tips are formatted. Heres an example of a tip: You should always choose the custom or advanced option, if the setup routine offers one. In every case weve ever seen, there is a default setting for any steps in the program where youre given a choice. In situations where you dont know what youre looking at, you can choose the default. However, in places where you do know what youre looking at, you may often disagree with what some faraway programmer has decided to do to your system.  Exam Prep Questions This section presents a series of mock test questions and explanations of both correct and incorrect answers. Each chapter has a number of Exam Prep Questions highlighting the areas we found to be most important on the exam.  Need To Know More Every chapter ends with a section entitled "Need To Know More?" This section provides direct pointers to resources that offer further details on the chapters subject matter. In addition, this section tries to rate the quality and thoroughness of each topics coverage. If you find a resource you like in this collection, use it, but dont feel compelled to use all these resources. On the other hand, we recommend only resources that we have used on a regular basis, so none of the recommendations will be a waste of your time or money. The bulk of the book follows this chapter structure, but there are a few other elements that we would like to point out:  Sample Test A very close approximation of the 1998 A+ exam is found in Chapter 12.  Answer Key The answers to the sample test appear in Chapter 13.  Acronym Glossary This is a fairly extensive glossary of acronyms.  The Cram Sheet This appears as a tear-away inside the front cover of this Exam Cram book. It is a valuable tool that represents a condensed and compiled collection of facts and numbers that we think you should memorize before taking the test. Because you can dump this information out of your head onto a piece of paper before answering any exam questions, you can master this information by brute force. You only need to remember it long enough to write it down when you walk into the test room. You might even want to look at the Cram Sheet in the car or in the lobby of the testing center just before you walk in to take the exam. Keep in mind that if you take both tests together, there is a break between the core and the DOS/Windows specialty exam. The Cram Sheet is divided under headings, so you can review the appropriate parts just before each test. Using This Book If youre preparing for the A+ certification exam for the first time, weve structured the topics in this book to build upon one another. Therefore, the topics covered in later chapters will make more sense after youve read earlier chapters. In our opinion, many computer manuals and reference books are essentially a list of facts. Rather than simply list raw facts about each topic on the exam, weve tried to paint an integrated landscape in your imagination, where each topic and exam fact takes on a landmark status. We suggest you read this book from front to back for your initial test preparation. You wont be wasting your time, since nothing weve written is a guess about an unknown exam. If you need to brush up on a topic or you have to bone up for a second try, use the Index or Table of Contents to go straight to the topics and questions that you need to study. After taking the tests, we think youll find this book useful as a tightly focused reference and an essential foundation of microcomputer knowledge. If you have a lot of experience with PCs and their operating systems, you may want to read those sections of the book and then try the sample test in Chapter 12. We do think, though, that because the A+ exam covers an extremely wide range of information, you would be better served by taking the time to go through the book chapter by chapter. Contacting The Authors Weve tried to create a real-world tool that you can use to prepare for and pass the core and specialty exams. We are definitely interested in any feedback you would care to share about the book, especially if you have ideas about how we can improve it for future test-takers. We will consider everything you say carefully and will respond to all reasonable suggestions and comments. We would like to know if you found this book to be helpful in your preparation efforts. Wed also like to know how you felt about your chances of passing the exam before you read the book and then after you read the book. Of course, wed love to hear that you passed the exam, and even if you just want to share your triumph, wed be happy to hear from you. You can reach us via email at jimjones@jamesgjones.com or at clandes@napsa.net. Please include the title of the book in your message (i.e., A+ Exam Cram); otherwise, well have to guess which book youre making suggestions about. For up-to-date information on A+ certification, specifications, and other preparation materials, visit the Certification Insider Press Web site at www.certificationinsider.com. Youre always welcome to stop by the authors Web site, too, at www.jamesgjones.com (note the "g" in the middle). Thanks for choosing us as your personal trainers, and enjoy the book! Well wish you luck on the exam, but we know that if you read through all the chapters, you wont need luckyoull ace the test on the strength of real knowledge!