Future Master Mind

CompTIA A+ Exams

Posted by admin on December 13th, 2010

I recently took both the CompTIA A+ Essentials and the A+ Practical Application (2009 Edition) Exams. I took the Exams at:

Towson University
7400 York Rd
Suite 401
Towson, MD 21204
USA
On 12/10/10

The Testing Center was clean and neat. There was no Noise while I was testing. I’m currently a Student at Tesst College of Technology, Towson Branch. I’m ending my third Quarter next week. My primary instructor had been Jeremy Bennett (Mr. Bennett). I’m 55 years old he is 29. It’s a little awkward calling him Mr. Bennett, but he deserves the respect. He has taught me a great deal about Computer Hardware and Computer Networking.
I’ll be returning to the above testing center soon for my Net+ Exam. Mr. Bennett taught me a great deal and it helped me prepare for the A+ exam. One of the tools that helped besides hands on instruction were the CompTIA LabSims. I spent over 200 hours learning from the LabSims. I have not been posting to this blog and I’m behind on updating my web pages. But, I sacrificed time spent updating my web sites and posting to this blog to study for the A+ exams.
The thing I liked most about the test was, I got to see if I passed or failed as soon as I finished it. I was well prepared to take both exams. When I was taking the A+ Essentials the answers came fairly easy to me. I didn’t just want to pass the test I wanted to really know and understand the material. The A+ Essentials is graded on a scaled score between 100 and 900. You need a 675 to pass the Exam. After I finished the test and clicked the completed test button. I Passed with a score of 825. I wanted to take both Exams before the end of 2010 so I would not have to take the A+ exams every 3 years. So I scheduled both Test the same day.
After the A+ Essentials exam I took a 20 minute break. After the 20 minute break I returned for the A+ Practical Applications Exam. The Practical Applications Exam took me a little longer to take. Some of the questions had “choose the BEST answer”. These were a little more difficult because all of the answers were correct, but I had to choose the BEST answer. I flagged several of these so I could get the questions I knew the answers to out of the way. Before I pushed the button to complete the exam I was confident I had passed. The A+ Practical Applications Exam has a scaled score between 100 and 900. You need a 700 to pass. Instantly I saw my passing score of 810 (not as high as I thought I scored). But it was a personal achievement that gave me an adrenaline rush that lasted for hours. All the time I spent studying paid off.
I received print outs of both test with instructions to wait 5 days before going to CompTIA’s Web site to get my A+ certification. Three days later I received an email with my A+ Digital Certificate. I have since updated my Resume. I’m waiting on the Certification package to be sent by snail mail. I set a goal to be A+ certified before the end of 2010. Which I accomplished. Now I’m ready for the Net+ Exam…
I will be making more post about Visual Studio and C# soon….