I think the last thread I started was asking for study tips (which were quite helpful, btw) and I’ve been mostly absent from the SDMB for the past couple of weeks preoccupied with studying. (I know, you all missed me, didn’t you?)
But yesterday I went to the Prometric testing center at the local community college and took the two test required for the CompTIA A+ IT Technician certification. Managed to pass them both.
I still fee like I’m re-entering life after being so buried in the books for several weeks.
So, yay! Whoopeee! Hooray! I passed! Call me certifiable.
Good deal, I’m glad to hear it.
I knew something was amiss. 
How about I just call you pleased?
You sure brought a smile to my face. 
Huzzah! How goes the singing?
Congrats!
I bought a book for A+ cert years ago. I was a bit put off by all the outdated crap they thought I should know, so I never took the test. Did you get any ancient PC history questions on your test?
Congratulations on your first cert!
Now that you know certification exams are not deadly poison, what will you go after next? Network+, MCSE, CCNA?
Or are you going for the big guns and looking to get a CISSP? (Ye gads, that was a horrible exam!) :eek:
Well, did you take a course or just read books and brain dumps? Back in the day (dear gawd, it was a decade ago!) I just read a few books, but others took courses. Of course, the late nineties was the heyday, and the tests in my opinion were pretty easy.
Folks say that you make more money at the keyboard than at the screwdriver. Fuckem. There are a shitload of unemployed programmers, and all the techs I know are still working. Start ou t with the skills of the A+ and start learning Unix, and you’ll be employable for the foreseeable future.
CoG888 The book I used, the Dummies book did have a lot of out of date stuff that I’d never use and if I needed to know it I’d look it up. That was off putting because I wasn’t keen on memorizing memory addresses and IRQs and which kind of CPU fits into which type of socket/slot and how many pins a DIMM or SIMM or RIMM or SO-DIMM has. I was told that you might see one or two of those things on the test. I saw exactly one.
In the end I didn’t need to really know much of that stuff but I was glad I studied much of what I memorized helped me out.
And I’ve gotten a broader knowledge about how things work inside the box which is a good thing.
In answer to your question NurseCarmen My company offered a series of teleconferences (I think 8 in all) where two guys who had taken the test went through the Dummies book and told us what to remember and what to not worry about. Basically compressed 900+ pages down to a manageable 100 pages or so. That was helpful and I also used a web site called proprofs.com which had loads of practice tests and other information.
To answer your question gotpasswords this will most likely be my first and last certification exam. I’m a musician and I look at tech support as my “day job”. I’m just not all that interested in the field to pursue it any further but I may eat those words some day when I’m to old to sing without scaring people. Funny thing I told my brother and he reminded me of his Oracle and Netware certifications which took 4 and 7 test respectively. Better him than me.
And the singing is going just fine Autolycus steady gigs and always an eye toward honing my craft. I like to think I’m improving and people seem to like me so I’m happy about that. Are you still in Boston? My daughter will be there next week for 5 days with a group from City Year. She’s staying somewhere near North Eastern University.
Yeah, how is any of that crap relevant to today?
Congrats on passing it, though, velvetjones!
I guess it’s relevant in that it’s important to know how IRQs and memory addresses work and how resource conflicts happen. But knowing which cpu (going back to Pentium and including whether it’s AMD or Intel) fits into which type of slot or socket? I guess if you’re building PCs that might be relevant but I can guarantee I’ll never use that information. Same with knowing how many pins a particular type of memory has. If I’m upgrading the RAM on a computer I’ll look that up. It’s a waste of space in my brain to keep it memorized especially since it’s likely to change soon.
Easiest question on the test:?
Which of these is NOT a type of printer?
a. dot-matrix
b. bubble-jet
c. laser
d. scanner