The Ultimate CompTIA A+ Resource Kit

Prices for book: The Ultimate CompTIA A+ Resource Kit

Book ISBN: 9781598630886

Author(s): Comp TIA Press

Document type: Trade Paper

Publisher: Unknown

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Reviews

A+ has changed, this product is obsolete, and wasn't that good to begin with.

Rating: 40%

1) CompTIA has revised the A+ program. This kit is desinged for the 2003 series tests. Those tests were supposed to be retired in the US on 12/31/2006, but that date has been pushed back until June '07 due to caterwauling from the peanut gallery.

You are better off trying your hand at the 2006 series of A+ exams.

2) The kit (at least mine) came with two 20% off exam coupones. Those saved me $63 dollars when I took the two exams. Those coupons expired on 12/31/2006. Caveat Emptor.

3) I also bought the "Exam Cram 2" series of books, which I found to be better sequenced towards the exams. This large tome zig zagged between Hardware (exam 1) and Windows OS/DOS fundamentals (exam 2). "Exam Cram 2" also has a nice concise card you use immediately before you walk into the exam.

4) Others may have had problems with the CD ROM, I did not. I did not find it to be of much use.

5) The flash cards were slightly helpful, but I did not use them much. I used the Transcender exams to "bone up" on...

6) I do not like huge bound books like this. They are tough to read unless you are at a desk or table. Hard to use on airplanes, and in cars.

William P. Magliocco (Amazon.com)

Comprehensive Maze

Rating: 60%

Simply: The book is comprehensive, but poorly arranged.

The book is arranged logically if one wants to progress through the book by general topic, but I found it very poorly arranged with respect to the A+ Certification. The A+ test covers very definitive subjects in each of the two tests. A logically arranged book would cover the material on each test in seperate sections rather than mixed into the various chapters of the book. While (almost) all of the information is present, it can be hard to set up study sessions with this guide if you want to approach the tests one at a time. I used other, more logically arranged books to greater effect.

Second, the software that comes with the set does not allow you to take a realistic practice test. It isn't that the questions are poorly worded, per se... its just that the practice test does not follow the objectives of the actual tests. When I buy a book designed to help me learn the material necessary to pass, I want a realistic assessment, not someone else's view of what I should know.

On the up side, this book does help when you need to reinforce a concept with a different manner of instruction, or when you want to look something up quickly. It covers the material relatively well, even if it is poorly arranged. The resource CDs are great if you don't mind reading from a computer screen... lugging a book that feels like 20 pounds of dead weight can be tiresome.

In addition, some of the kits come with discount coupons for the test. Saving 20% on two tests goes a long way towards paying for this kit.

Sabalo (Amazon.com)

It's great for passing the test.

Rating: 60%

If your primary goal is to pass the test then this book is excellent. But as most things in life go, what you learn in books and what you see in the real world are totally diffirent. The technology this book talks about are obsolete and so are some of the solutions. But overall it is a good foundation to build upon and to get certified with.

Clifton G. Griffiths (Amazon.com)

Do not buy this package!

Rating: 40%

"That is my advice for anyone is going to buy this book simply because it dose not worth money although I bought it from for the best price online from somewhere else.
But why it dose not worth money? That is what I am going to tell you in the next points after I have read already the HARDWARE part:
1-Some figures/graphics are missing.
2-The publisher of the book never tells "even in their original website" about the real name of the Author! And the Author name is "Jean Andrews" just in case you want to know.
Actually at first I was thinking this is a work of a group of technecians but that was not true and it was suprise to me.
3-The answers of the questions of chapter like ""ALL ABOUT SCSI" which is chapter 22 are totally wrong and after answering some questions I stoped because I did not want to replace the rest of my information with corrupted information.
4-The chapter of hard drives is very complicated although it should not be.
5-Although the book seems updated when you read about it but the truth is that the book is
very outdated!
6-The hardware part is missed up with some software parts so you have to make some effort in order to skip some things you do want to read.
7- And the final one and biggest problem I face now is the CD of the book, I tried just today to open it to practise but I am suprised now by a message saying ""this Program is protected by a password"" which something I never heared about it in my life specially with something I already bought legaly.
There are other 2 CDs in this package but I did not open them yet and actually I am afraid to...
All these reasons combined is why I am giving this book two stars and actually I was debating with myself to give it one star but then I said to myself at least learned something from it.
Now after this problem of the CD I will try to contact the publisher to see what I should do.
There are alot of choices in the market to choose from when you are going for A+.
But my last advice for any newbie DO NOT EVER buy a book which dose not reveal the name of its real Author and DO NOT EVER buy a book just because it looks a good package, mostly the books which includes packages the publisher wants to hide behind it the weakness of the Author.
Last thing: do not buy something without reading reviews about it but why I bought this book is because I liked the package and I did not find on the internet a single review to tell me if this package is good or not. But now you know and my review maybe is the only review about this anonymous book package on the internet and
I wish from Amazon.com to write down the name of the Author which is Jean Andrews so it can help the customers in their research.
I really cannot believe that this book has been approved by CompTIA.

Thanks

A.R (Amazon.com)

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