Who This Book Is For

The CompTIA A+ exams are designed for individuals with at least 12 months of hands-on experience in a lab or in the field. If you have that experience, this book will be an excellent late-stage study tool. However, if you have not acquired that experience, I recommend that you register for a hands-on A+ course or, at the very least, purchase an A+ study guide such as the CompTIA A+ Core 1 220-1101 and Core 2 220-1102 Exam Cram textbook or consider my CompTIA A+ 220-1101 Complete Video Course and CompTIA A+ 220-1102 Complete Video Course. After you take the course and/or read the study guide, return to this book as your late-stage test preparation to be used just before taking the real exams.

What You Will Find in This Book

In every chapter devoted to practice exams, you will find the following three elements:

• Practice Questions: Each chapter includes 80 questions that help you learn, drill, and review for the exams.

• Quick-Check Answer Key: After you finish answering the questions, you can quickly grade your exam from this section. Only correct answers are given in this section. No explanations are offered yet. Even if you answered a question incorrectly, do not be discouraged. Keep in mind that this is not the real exam. You can always review the topic and revisit the questions again.

• Answers and Explanations: This section provides you with correct answers as well as explanations about the content posed in that question. Use this information to learn why an answer is correct and to reinforce the content in your mind for exam day.

The book also comes with a companion website. It contains a simulated testing environment where you can take all the exams on a computer in study mode or in full practice test mode. It also includes two bonus exams. Create an account and register this book at http://www.pearsonitcertification.com to get access to the bonus content. For those who purchased a Kindle edition from Amazon, the access code will be supplied directly by Amazon.

Hints for Using This Book

Complete your exams on a separate piece of paper so that you can reuse the practice questions if necessary. Also, plan to score 90% or higher on each exam before moving on to the next one. The higher you score on these practice questions, the better your chances for passing the real exams.

I am available for questions at my website: https://dprocomputer.com.

Companion Website

Register this book to get access to the Pearson IT Certification test engine and other study materials plus additional bonus content. Check this site regularly for new and updated postings written by the author that provide further insight into the most troublesome topics on the exam. Be sure to check the box indicating that you would like to hear from us to receive updates and exclusive discounts on future editions of this product or related products.

To access the companion website, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.pearsonitcertification.com/register and log in or create a new account.

2. Enter the ISBN: 9780137658183.

3. Answer the challenge question as proof of purchase.

4. Click the Access Bonus Content link in the Registered Products section of your account page to be taken to the page where your downloadable content is available.

Please note that many of our companion content files (especially image and video files) are very large.

If you are unable to locate the files for this title by following these steps, please visit www.pearsonITcertification.com/contact and select the Site Problems/Comments option. Our customer service representatives will assist you.

Pearson Test Prep Practice Test Software

As noted previously, this book comes complete with the Pearson Test Prep practice test software, all the exams from the book. These practice tests are available to you either online or as an offline Windows application. To access the practice exams that were developed with this book, please see the instructions in the card inserted in the sleeve in the back of the book. This card includes a unique access code that enables you to activate your exams in the Pearson Test Prep software.

Accessing the Pearson Test Prep Software Online

The online version of this software can be used on any device with a browser and connectivity to the Internet, including desktop machines, tablets, and smartphones. To start using your practice exams online, simply follow these steps:

Step 1. Go to https://www.PearsonTestPrep.com.

Step 2. Select Pearson IT Certification as your product group.

Step 3. Enter your email/password for your account. If you don’t have an account on PearsonITCertification.com, you need to establish one by going to PearsonITCertification.com/join.

Step 4. In the My Products tab, click the Activate New Product button.

Step 5. Enter the access code printed on the insert card in the back of your book to activate your product. The product will now be listed in your My Products page.

Step 6. Click the Exams button to launch the exam settings screen and start your exam.

Accessing the Pearson Test Prep Software Offline

If you wish to study offline, you can download and install the Windows version of the Pearson Test Prep software. There is a download link for this software on the book’s companion website, or you can just enter this link in your browser: http://www.pearsonitcertification.com/content/downloads/pcpt/engine.zip.

To access the book’s companion website and the software, simply follow these steps:

Step 1. Register your book by going to PearsonITCertification.com/register and entering the ISBN: 9780137658183.

Step 2. Answer the challenge questions.

Step 3. Go to your account page and click the Registered Products tab.

Step 4. Click the Access Bonus Content link under the product listing.

Step 5. Click the Install Pearson Test Prep Desktop Version link under the Practice Exams section of the page to download the software.

Step 6. After the software finishes downloading, unzip all the files on your computer.

Step 7. Double-click the application file to start the installation and follow the onscreen instructions to complete the registration.

Step 8. After the installation is complete, launch the application and click the Activate Exam button on the My Products tab.

Step 9. Click the Activate a Product button in the Activate Product Wizard.

Step 10. Enter the unique access code found on the card in the sleeve in the back of your book and click the Activate button.

Step 11. Click Next and then click Finish to download the exam data to your application.

Step 12. Start using the practice exams by selecting the product and clicking the Open Exam button to open the exam settings screen.

Note that the offline and online versions will sync together, so saved exams and grade results recorded on one version will be available to you on the other as well.

Customizing Your Exams

Once you are in the exam settings screen, you can choose to take exams in one of three modes:

• Study mode: This mode allows you to fully customize your exams and review answers as you are taking an exam. This is typically the mode you would use first to assess your knowledge and identify information gaps.

• Practice Exam mode: This mode locks certain customization options in order to present a realistic exam experience. Use this mode when you are preparing to test your exam readiness.

• Flash Card mode: This mode strips out the answers and presents you with only the question stem. This mode is great for late-stage preparation, when you really want to challenge yourself to provide answers without the benefit of seeing multiple-choice options. This mode does not provide the detailed score reports that the other two modes provide, so it is not the best mode for helping you identify knowledge gaps.

In addition to these three modes, you will be able to select the source of your questions. You can choose to take exams that cover all of the chapters, or you can narrow your selection to just a single chapter or the chapters that make up specific parts in the book. All chapters are selected by default. If you want to narrow your focus to individual chapters, simply deselect all the chapters and then select only those on which you wish to focus in the Objectives area.

You can also select the exam banks on which to focus. Each exam bank comes complete with a full exam of questions that cover topics in every chapter. The exams printed in the book are available to you, as are two additional exams of unique questions. You can have the test engine serve up exams from all banks or just from one individual bank by selecting the desired banks in the exam bank area.

There are several other customizations you can make to your exam from the exam settings screen, such as the time allowed for taking the exam, the number of questions served up, whether to randomize questions and answers, whether to show the number of correct answers for multiple-answer questions, and whether to serve up only specific types of questions. You can also create custom test banks by selecting only questions that you have marked or questions on which you have added notes.

Updating Your Exams

If you are using the online version of the Pearson Test Prep software, you should always have access to the latest version of the software as well as the exam data. If you are using the Windows desktop version, every time you launch the software, it will check to see if there are any updates to your exam data and automatically download any changes made since the last time you used the software. This requires that you be connected to the Internet at the time you launch the software.

Sometimes, due to a number of factors, the exam data might not fully download when you activate your exam. If you find that figures or exhibits are missing, you might need to manually update your exams. To update a particular exam you have already activated and downloaded, simply select the Tools tab and click the Update Products button. Again, this is only an issue with the desktop Windows application.

If you wish to check for updates to the Windows desktop version of the Pearson Test Prep exam engine software, simply select the Tools tab and click the Update Application button. Doing so allows you to ensure that you are running the latest version of the software engine.

Need Further Study?

Consider taking a hands-on A+ course and be sure to see the following companion products to this book:

CompTIA A+ Core 1 220-1101 and Core 2 220-1102 Exam Cram by David L. Prowse (ISBN: 978-0-1376-3754-6)

CompTIA A+ Core 1 220-1101 Complete Video Course by David L. Prowse (ISBN: 978-0-13-790378-8)

CompTIA A+ Core 2 220-1102 Complete Video Course by David L. Prowse

Figure Credit

Figure 9.1 Microsoft Corporation