What are the most difficult A+ certification topics?

Certification: CompTIA CompTIA A+ - CompTIA A+


The A+ certification is the vendor neutral certification which certifies the competency of the service professionals in the IT industry. It is suitable for any candidate like to have an internationally recognized credential as the competent computer service professionals.

This certification exam is one among the largest certification throughout worldwide. It is sponsored and developed by the CompTIA. It helps to reach the common goal of the standardized qualification for the professional working in the IT industry. The membership of the CompTIA includes most global hardware and software manufacturers such as IBM, Compaq, Lotus, Microsoft and much more. 

The A+ certification is the most popular an entry level certification. IT is normally well and good for the  candidates with a little bit of working experience in the computer service. It covers most of the topics like professionalism, communication, troubleshooting, installation, networking and maintenance. This A+ certification exam is revised every 3 years to ensure that the new objectives reflect the most recent employment requirements. If you are new to the IT field, then it is a most suitable certification for you people. It comprises of performance based questions and so it is tough to have a hands on experience.

The A+ certification is specially proposed in the technical support field. It is the best area for the beginner to grasp a great knowledge of the basics of an IT professional. The hands on experience gained will help in problem solving.

This certification consists of 2 exams such as 220-801 and 220-802. The CompTIA A+ practical application and CompTIA A+ Essentials are the two older exams which retired on 31st August 2013.

Most difficult A+ certification topics:

Each exam follows certain objectives and syllabus. Like that, this A+ certification covers most of the topics which require to meet the certification requirement. As it is an entry level of certification, it does not require any prerequisite skills and knowledge to get eligible for this certification. But it is recommended to have some months to years of experience in the computer service. Most of the certification exams include both tough topics and simple topics. Likewise, this A+ certification exam also includes difficult and easy topics.

However, some topics will be easy for some candidates and different typical topics will be easy for some other candidate. The difficulties lie on the candidate focus and the knowledge they already gained about the certain topics.

The A+ certification exam includes topics such as:

1. Basic networking

2. Preventive maintenance

3. Memory/processors/motherboard

4. Diagnosing and troubleshooting

5. Upgrading, configuration and installation

In the above topics, the basic networking and installing, configuration and upgrading are the most difficult topics in the A+ certification exam when compared to the other topics.

Upgrading, configuration and installation:

For most of the candidates, this will be considered as the most difficult topic. It also includes sub topics such as storage devices, power supply, portable storage devices, firmware, partitioning the hard drive, hardware compatibility, identify physical parts, network cables, network cards, printers, legacy devices, infrared, wireless, serial, parallel, identify DMA, I/O and IRQ settings, memory, RAID, SCSI, and infrared. The candidate has to familiarize all those important things to score well in the A+ certification exam. It is hard to collect the resources for the tough and it requires hard work and dedication to learn the concepts. This topic holds 35% of marks weightage. In this topic, you can expect number of questions when compared to the other topics. The candidate is d to learn all the concepts that come under this topic to score better in the final A+ certification exam.

Basic networking:

Next to  the above topic, this networking is also considered as the difficult topic. Till date this networking might be confusing one for most of the candidates. It includes networking concepts, gateway, subnet mask, network protocols, apple talk, Winicfg, protocols, topology wiring, installing network cards, cable types such as STP, UTP and fiber, connector types such as RG45 and BNC, bandwidth, addressing and topologies such as DSL, CABLE, WAN and LAN. The candidate is required to concentrate this networking to grasp the concepts and to gain the required skills on networking. It is one among the most important topics in the A+ certification and for computer service professionals. Hence, even it is difficult topic, the candidate has to concentrate more on it to perform their job role in a better manner. The hands on experience will help the candidate to learn more about the networking and its concepts.

The difficulties may vary from one applicant to another applicant. Maybe this difficult topic will be easier for some candidates, if they really interested in this particular. Some candidate feels that the troubleshooting is the tough one among the other ones. In this, it is important to learn how to troubleshoot and resolve the issue within the shorter period of time. It will be a tough one when it comes a real world application. Hence, it requires real world application to gain the knowledge and to learn the troubleshooting process and concepts.

The candidate who familiarizes with those topics can score better result in the final A+ certification exam. As it is popular certification, the candidate who attained this certification will get better opportunities in their career. It provides foundation knowledge on the most of the topics which helps to perform the computer service tasks in a better way. The certified candidate will know how to configure, install and operating the computer service and knows how to maintain and troubleshoot the system as well. This offer great knowledge in the related field. 

If any topics will be considered as difficult topics means, that will a most important topics for that particular exam. Hence, prepare those difficult topics to score well and gain knowledge in the respective field.


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