Welcome to my blog! This is my first post and I’m excited about this journey of making a career change. If you want to learn some more about me and what inspired this, check out my about me section! As of March 16, 2024, I am officially CompTIA A+ certified! I’m so thrilled to have passed and am looking forward to continue the job hunt! For some background, I have 0 experience in IT and spend about a year studying for this exam. I probably could’ve taken the test sooner but I really wanted to make sure I really understood the material rather than just studying for a test. After all, I am looking to make a career change to IT and I want to make sure I really understand these skills and ideas. All of my studies were self-study and I am learning this from the ground up on my own! I’ve been all over the internet trying to find the best way to make this career change and one of the most frequent suggestions for someone with no experience was to get the CompTIA A+ certification. I’ve learned so much from studying this exam and it has really inspired me and has me very excited for this journey. With that being said, here are some resources that I used to study and prepare for my exam!
CompTIA A+ Exam Objectives
The first and probably most important study resource I used and is essential to studying for the exam, is the CompTIA A+ Exam Objectives. These are an outline of the objectives covered in the exam and tells you everything you need to know to be prepared for the exam. You need to make sure that you know all of these objectives to pass the test! If you can go through and explain each exam objective and understand what each of these entails, you know you are ready to take the exam! I made a Google Doc with the exam objectives and went through and made notes for each of the objectives. Not only will it help with the exam but also as a great reference for the troubleshooting, labs, etc. Here are the links for the exam objectives for both the Core 1 and Core 2 exam:
CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-one textbook by Mike Myers
I’d say that this book was probably the biggest source material I used to prepare for this exam. If you are new to IT and all of the material covered in the CompTIA A+ exam, this book is a great resource. It is laid out in such a way that it starts you from the absolute basics of computing and builds on that foundational material. I like the way the books is formatted. You get some introductory history and background so you can follow along with the technology and how it developed. You don’t get just the facts in this book, but a lot of the why behind everything. Each chapter is divided into what you need to know for the 1101 and the 1102 exam so you can really focus on each part and don’t have to siphon through each chapter and decipher what you need to know for each part of the exam. One of the most helpful things in this book is the exam objective reference near the end of the book. It tells you which chapter to read to cover each exam objective. This was extremely helpful! I would also recommend doing the quizzes at the end of each section, not only does it make sure you know the material, but it gives you an idea of how questions are worded in regards to the material, which is invaluable for preparing for the exam.
Professor Messer
Professor Messer is an absolute godsend for those looking to get into IT and to prepare for any of the CompTIA exams. He offers so many free resources and additional materials for a fair price to help prepare for the CompTIA A+ exam. His resources were crucial to passing the exam for me. He offers detailed videos addressing each exam objective (which are free!), course notes, practice exams, study groups, and discounted exam vouchers! I used pretty much all of the resources he has to offer. The exam videos are outstanding and give you everything you need to know without too much fluff. The videos are straight and to the point and really give you a base understanding of the objectives. Probably the most valuable resource I used from Professor Messer, was purchasing his practice exams! You get 3 practice tests which include multiple choice questions and practice PBQs (Performance Based Questions). Each exam has detailed notes explaining why the right answer is right and why each wrong answer is wrong. This was HUGE! It really helps you address what your weak areas are and understand why you are missing questions. I would recommend getting these as soon as you start studying for the exam. I was clueless to what the exam was going to entail, but getting to see the way the questions were structured and how the questions addressed the exam objectives was huge in helping me prepare for the exam! I would definitely check out his website and Youtube channel when preparing for the CompTIA A+ exam!
Jason Dion’s CompTIA A+ Practice Exams on Udemy
These practice exams were highly recommended by a ton of folks on the internet. They are a fantastic resource for some practice exams and give you a good idea of what to expect on the real thing. You get 6 practice exams to take from this course and you can retake them as many times as you like. You get a detailed explanation of the answers at the end of the test. These are also timed (unlike the Professor Messer Exams) so you can get a feel of the pace of the exam. I did find these exams very helpful, however there were some parts of the exams that seemed a little bit out of the scope of the exam objectives. It’s not necessarily a bad thing because you are still learning relevant information for getting into IT but sometimes I would get frustrated at questions that seemed to be out of the blue and I couldn’t relate to the objectives. I also think some of the questions were a little unclear and confusing and could use a little touch up on the delivery. However, this isn’t too far off from what the exam experience can be like. From the 2 tests that I have taken and from reading others experiences, CompTIA will sometimes include questions that can seem unrelated or have very confusing wording that can be very frustrating. Overall, I think the practice exams were a great resource and also give you so many looks at the different types of questions that may appear on the real exam. Some have suggested to wait for a discounted price on Udemy to purchase the course, but I did not have to purchase them. Fortunately, my local library allows free access to all Udemy courses with a library card. So I would check with your library first and see if you are able to get access to Udemy through your library card!
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