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I watched the videos, and did all the tests on the CD. The CD is also great. What I did not like about the book is the pictures are black and white. I love this book. It is full of real world examples, and Mike's writing is not dry like so many other A+ books I read.
It's not a textbook to be studied just for an exam -at least I didn't take it just as such. Sometimes I take the book from my book shelf and read over that chapter out of pure fascination.It starts thus: "in this chapter you will:1).Understand the concepts of buses, and the functions of the data bus and the address bus.2).Understand the clock, clock speed, the concept of clock doubling 3).Understand the relationship of RAM to the CPU and RAM caching.4).Inspect the different type of processors available in the past and today5).Learn how to install and upgrade processors."Even though my copy is from the age of the gnomes, the same basic information hasn't change. First, and most important: this book has photographs, pictures, and illustrations.I got my core knowledge of technical computing from this book when I started out as a newbie techie back in the day.I studied the very first edition back in the age of the dinosaurs. I read it also with a pure enjoyment of learning.I particularly enjoyed the second chapter, on processors. It only got more fascinating. Back then it covered both Windows and DOS and even had chapters on Windows 3.1.It was -and still is -a huge book that looked like the compendium of all things known to man, and I consumed every bit it. It helped me to pass my A+ exam with flying colors.
Will not know for sure the results of the material until after taking the test from its study. So far excellent product.
Experience troubleshooting the pc's, printers, and networks of friends and family goes a long way in passing an exam like this along with a large library of accurate practice questions.Meyer's book is definately a great resource, but I think those who say it lacks detail only read the book once or twice. Learn/use keyboard shortcuts, memorize paths to system tools, use the command line when you could use explorer, do thing's outside of what you normally do and this will help you become a great tech and gain confidence for taking this and other exams. Also, real world experience is required. I felt the networking chapter was adequate for the tests. Meyer's book accomplishes this. I have found upon re-inspection some things I thought were left out are in indeed actually there.
For the price, this is a great book, and if you don't think it has enough information, please read it again before flaming. As a certified IT Technician I believe Mike Meyer's All-in-One CompTIA A+ exam guide is a well written, edited, and entertaining book that is well worth the modest price for its 1100+ pages. But do I think this book alone will help somebody pass the A+ Essentials and/or 220-602, 220-603, or 220-604 exams.It really depends on the difficulty of the exams which does vary between tests, the real world experience of the tester, and whether the tester actually "reads" the book or simply skims it expecting a quick and easy pass. Knowing a moderate amount of a lot of thing's will get you much farther in my opinion than knowing every minute detail of a small amount of thing's.
It is very important to know legacy devices and Meyer's discussion of earlier technology is crucial in passing the A+ exam.But most importantly, I believe this book will help you become a good tech. While one other reviewer deeply criticized this book for its focus on history being useless, I am going to respectfully disagree. That's the way it goes.
Meyer's questions won't cut it. Command line chapter was good although a handful of additional commands could have been mentioned. Meyer's presents the information in a way that is easier to retain and as a result I think more will be remembered when sitting at the testing station.I believe one can pass the A+ exams with this book, but a large library of practice exams presented in a similar format as CompTIA's is absolutely necessary. It seems many people I know who want to be techs are nothing more than moderately skilled users who think "it'd be fun" to work on computers for a living only to buy a book like this, plow through it, and fail the A+ miserably.
I have found that we are not going to retain everything we read and when you're halfway through this book I can virtually guarantee some information from chapter 2 will be forgotten. The security chapter was a little light. The visible pc, microprocessors, memory, hard drive technologies, removable media, video, sound, printers, and communication and professionalism chapters were quite detailed. RAID could have gone into more detail.
this is a great book, very easy to understand. the book arrived in very good condition.
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