[Nik00117]

Ok yes I know the material changed for the A+ (as i heard it) but my school being a military school overseas gets to take the old A+ test in 2007. So anyways my teacher today (first year teaching the cisco acad for A+) decided to tell us he is willing to keep teaching the class he is,a nd teh ones who want the cert go out and study for it ignoring all class work. He said if anyone passes it they select their grade.

Either way i'm looking for some good books based ont he old 2006 test verison, basically we are going study oursevles and teach oursevles the test and pass it theres about 3-4 of us in the class that intend on doing it.

 

[Cellus]

When I took my A+ certification (based on the old tests), I used Sybex's A+ Complete book. I can tell you that 90% of what you need to know for the two exams is in that book, as well as extra tidbits such as the objectives in terms of tasks for A+ attached to the beginning and a CD at the end containing an electronic version of the book in PDF format. I've gone through a lot of certification books, and I have to tell you this is one of the better ones.

By the way there is nothing wrong taking the old A+ exams. CompTIA has mentioned that the certification is still valid based on them. You will however have questions relating to outdated hardware and software (questions about the ISA bus and Windows 95), but not many.

If you can't get that particular book, there are alternatives. In general, I have found books from Sybex to be quite good (Mastering Windows Server 2003 is a godsend). Books from Thompson Nelson/Thomson Course Technology are also fairly good. For the most part, you want to find books that have the CompTIA Approved Quality Curriculum seal stamped on it, as they've been reviewed by CompTIA. While the seal by no means assures a perfect book (I've caught mistakes in their CompTIA AQC "seal of approval" material before), it at least meets some standards compared to some lesser brands.