Hi guys.
I will be studying for A+ and then N +
Can somebody please recommend me which study materials would I require are best?How to structure my study (this would be greatly helpful for me) ?and If you have any experience, how long did you take to study for it.
Thanks for any help.
There are a lot of material out there for CompTIA's exams. The A+ and Network+ are fairly easy to prepare for. I would recommendt that you buy a book for each and get some access to at least a computer that you can run VM software (virtual PC, vmware, virtualbox, etc..) so that you can run through labs for the Windows portion of the A+ exam. For the hardware portion, it helps to have access to a school lab where they let you take apart computers so you can actually put into practice what you read about with regard to hardware.
With Network+, it is a lot easier to pass the exam without some much hands on, but the more experience you have with regard to working with network cards, cabling, switches, routers, the easier the exam.
A lot of these books, come with practice tests, and some come with software to emulate routers and switches.
The lenght of time depends on the person. If you eat books and have a real passion for this stuff, it can be done over a few weekends. For others it could take a few months. I use to teach these coureses and found a wide range of time and ability among my students.
I used these types of study materials for my certifications:
Testout's Labsim software for A+ and Network+, as well as a lot of other certs that I've gotten
It's rather expensive, but it will teach you mostly everything that you need to pass the exam, just make sure to take notes during the videos and do all of the labs. I highly reccomend it though.
Otherwise, books, books, books. You can buy a lot of these on amazon for cheap, just make sure that they are for the right version of the test. And for A+, there are two tests, sometimes there might be seperate books for each. The vendors that I reccommend you get books from would be "McGrawHill" or the "All-In-One" books, The "Pass the Test!" books with the atlas guy on the front, the Sybex study guides, and the "Que certification" "Exam Cram" study guides for studying for these tests.
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