Rating: 
Summary: Ok on Hardware, absolute garbage on the OS portion
Review: After reading the Hardware portion of this book and completing the practice exams for the Hardware test, I passed, although not by a wide margin. After reading the OS portion of this book twice, completing the practice exams, and EVEN MAKING NOTECARDS OF THE ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEMS SECTION, I failed the OS test. One hundred bucks down the tube, thanks Syngress, I wish I would have read this review page before buying the book. I do not understand why this book has such poor coverage, it has the CompTIA approval logo on it. Ah lessons learned.
Rating:
Summary: Ok on Hardware, absolute garbage on the OS portion
Review: After reading the Hardware portion of this book and completing the practice exams for the Hardware test, I passed, although not by a wide margin. After reading the OS portion of this book twice, completing the practice exams, and EVEN MAKING NOTECARDS OF THE ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEMS SECTION, I failed the OS test. One hundred bucks down the tube, thanks Syngress, I wish I would have read this review page before buying the book. I do not understand why this book has such poor coverage, it has the CompTIA approval logo on it. Ah lessons learned.
Rating:
Summary: Far from the best choice.
Review: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. I have only had this book for about 6 hours and have already come across numerous errors! Not only is some of the content not up to date, some of the content is just plain wrong. There are serious conflicts between the Study guide, the Test Yourself Companion book and the Training software. If you are on a budget like me there are plenty of other titles to choose from, and please do so. As I have said, I have only studied this book for about 6 hours and was so disappointed with it I decided to come here to Amazon to check out the reviews for it, wish I had of before I bought it! The scariest thing about all this is I am no IT professional, I'm a boilermaker, and even I have spotted mistakes! I would like to say that this would at least be handy to have sitting on the bookshelf but because of the miss-information it contains I am not even able to say that.... I will try and return the book although its doubtful the bookstore will accept it, regardless of whether or not I able to return it, I WILL NOT BE USING IT TO PREPARE FOR THE A+ EXAM...
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
Review: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. I have only had this book for about 6 hours and have already come across numerous errors! Not only is some of the content not up to date, some of the content is just plain wrong. There are serious conflicts between the Study guide, the Test Yourself Companion book and the Training software. If you are on a budget like me there are plenty of other titles to choose from, and please do so. As I have said, I have only studied this book for about 6 hours and was so disappointed with it I decided to come here to Amazon to check out the reviews for it, wish I had of before I bought it! The scariest thing about all this is I am no IT professional, I'm a boilermaker, and even I have spotted mistakes! I would like to say that this would at least be handy to have sitting on the bookshelf but because of the miss-information it contains I am not even able to say that.... I will try and return the book although its doubtful the bookstore will accept it, regardless of whether or not I able to return it, I WILL NOT BE USING IT TO PREPARE FOR THE A+ EXAM...
Rating:
Summary: NOT ENOUGH INFO, do not buy
Review: I agreed 100% with the reviews that have given this book a poor rating. While this book is intersting to read, it is full of text errors and fails to give you enough information to pass the current A+ certication test. This book gives you a GENERAL idea of concepts that you must have detailed knowledge of. Do not buy if you wish to pass.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-written guide for A+ prep
Review: I got this book on the recommendation of a friend, and I'm glad I did. It's well written and easy to read. It covered the information I needed to pass and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to know what to focus on for the A+ test.
Rating:
Summary: Nice reading but not recommended for 2001 objectives exams
Review: I purchased the A+ Certification Study Guide 3rd Edition from Syngress (ISBN #0-07-212634-5) and used it to prepare for both A+ exams I took today. I took the new A+ exams (2001 objectives) which is the focus of the book's edition. Although I found the book very well written, inviting, and education in several respects, I also found that it did not prepare me nearly enough for either exam, and often gave erroneous information. For example, the book mentions that there will be no questions on processor chips outside of the Pentium line. However, there were several questions in this regard. Also, the book does not do nearly enough to help a person understand the hexadecimal system and DMA channel assignments, which were both emphasized on the exam. I also found that the content of the book fell significantly short of what was asked for in the exam. I don't need materials that "teach the test", but realized while taking it that the information on the exam was much more sophisticated and intricate than what was presented in the Syngress book. In summary, although I found the book informative in several respects, I cannot endorse it to others for the reasons aforementioned. Regarding the exams, I barely passed each one, but realize it was mainly a combination of luck and 10 years of computer experience which paid off. The book did help me with about 5-7 questions from each of the 70-question exams.
Rating:
Summary: Nice reading but not recommended for 2001 objectives exams
Review: I purchased the A+ Certification Study Guide 3rd Edition from Syngress (ISBN #0-07-212634-5) and used it to prepare for both A+ exams I took today. I took the new A+ exams (2001 objectives) which is the focus of the book's edition. Although I found the book very well written, inviting, and education in several respects, I also found that it did not prepare me nearly enough for either exam, and often gave erroneous information. For example, the book mentions that there will be no questions on processor chips outside of the Pentium line. However, there were several questions in this regard. Also, the book does not do nearly enough to help a person understand the hexadecimal system and DMA channel assignments, which were both emphasized on the exam. I also found that the content of the book fell significantly short of what was asked for in the exam. I don't need materials that "teach the test", but realized while taking it that the information on the exam was much more sophisticated and intricate than what was presented in the Syngress book. In summary, although I found the book informative in several respects, I cannot endorse it to others for the reasons aforementioned. Regarding the exams, I barely passed each one, but realize it was mainly a combination of luck and 10 years of computer experience which paid off. The book did help me with about 5-7 questions from each of the 70-question exams.
Rating:
Summary: It does not have 100% coverage, TRUST ME!!!
Review: If you go to any books store, you can find a lot of books on A+ from different publishers. However, if you want to get a higher score and get a full understanding on the hardwares and operating systems, this is not the book that can help you! A lot of the materials from my exam did not appear in anywhere on this book (especially the Operating System exam)!! Throughout my study on A+, I found this book is not relevant to the questions from both of the A+ exam.
Rating: 
Summary: Will help you pass if you work at it.
Review: Sometime small packages can have an abundance of wealth inside it. This is true with this book. In only 550 pages you are given more than enough information to pass the newest A+ exam. This book is also tailored made for the classroom environment.The first part, Core Hardware, the book goes over the components, installation and configuration, troubleshooting, safety, power, motherboards, CPUs, memory, networking and printing. As a computer instructor this fits right into the curriculum. Part 1, Operating Systems, you start of at the fundamentals, work with DOS through Windows 2000 professional, installation, configuration and troubleshooting as well as networking. Again the perfect fir into the teaching arena. The book gives you 2-minute drills, self tests, lab questions, figures, tables and diagrams with each chapter. The breakdown is good and the information presented is excellent. The book has made major improvements over the previous versions. Included with the book is the cd-rom with both the CertTrainer, a CBT software application that allows the learning at your pace. Also is ExamSim, which gives you practice tests and there are over 220 questions. Overall a very good value for the money.
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