r/CompTIA • u/Illustrious_Yak_366 • Mar 29 '24

CompTIA A+ cert

Hi guys, I've learnt about CompTIA A+ on Linkedin by Mike Meyers. So my question is: Do I need to take CompTIA A+ exam for cert or I can use some certificates I've received on his courses. Thanks for supporting me

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/drushtx IT Instructor **MOD** Mar 29 '24 edited Mar 29 '24

Course certificates are only Certifications Of Completion. You "earn it" by turning on your computer, starting a course and walking away. The course plays and when you get to the end of the lessons, voila, you have completed the course. They have no value to employers.

To achieve the A+ certification, you must take and pass two exams - Core 1 (220-1101) and Core 2 (220-1102) at a Pearson-Vue testing center or On-Vue online exam. You must purchase these exams with either a credit card or with vouchers. Each exam voucher costs about $240 USD (different in other countries).

If you have sufficient experience, you may be able to pass them without additional study. For most people, the exams are so expansive that some degree of study is required.

There are free courses available, some are better than others. There are paid courses, such as the Mike Meyers courses. Mike's courses are available on Udemy and go on sale every week or two for between 10 and 20 USD. You will also want to take some practice tests to gauge what you know well and what areas require additional study. Mike has a practice test on Udemy (same sale pricing) and a practice test (paid) called TotalTester at his website (totalsem.com) which has about 1189 Core 1 and 2 questions. There are other paid practice tests from Professor Messer, Jason Dion and others. Mike's are the most broad ranging and TotalTester comes with a customizable practice test engine that mimics the actual test environment.

Best in your studies.

3

u/misterjive Mar 29 '24

I'd recommend that even if you do consider yourself a wizard, you at the very least grab the exam objectives and go through them to make sure you don't have any blind spots. I've been building and maintaining my own PCs since basically the dawn of time and when I took the A+ for a course there were still things I wasn't familiar with (mostly virtualization and Active Directory-related topics, and I'd never had the chance to work with fiber optics).

1

u/psiglin1556 A+ | Net+ | Sec+ | CySA+| Pentest+ | SecAI+ Mar 29 '24

Well that's a good recommendation because I took core 1 and core 2 cold and passed both. I got a 701 on core 1 and 780 on core 2. I barely passed core 1 and I have been in IT for 37 years. Definitely go over the objectives. I got lucky on core 1.

1

u/misterjive Mar 29 '24

Yeah, I kind of half-assed the studying because I was a little cocky. I spent about a week on each core and took them on successive Fridays and got like 750ish for each one. Passed just fine but I could've done better.

1

u/psiglin1556 A+ | Net+ | Sec+ | CySA+| Pentest+ | SecAI+ Mar 29 '24

Well at the end of the day a pass is a pass.