Rating: 
Summary: Good Book-It was my main source
Review: This is a good book covering all the A+ material quite well. What i liked was that in the OS technologies section of the book the author gives tips which are very handy because i saw many questions based on these tips. Another thing i liked was the practise software on the CD. There is 3-4 different companies with demo exams on the CD. I did my actual tests today and i passed well. I got 1067 in the OS section. I used this book as the primary source and used cram sheets and various internet notes. Also the main thing is to do as many prac tests as you can to get a wide range of questioning used. However this book gets 4 stars because it has some errors. Some you might be able to pick up some you might not. Like this on page 136 "For the exam, serial communications is not capable of full-duplex transmission" Well in fact it is because it contains 9 or 25 pins which have send and receive at the same time capability. All you have to see is a diagram on the inside of a serial cable and you will see my argument. Anyway regardless it will help you pass if you read cover to cover and do all the practise questions.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Study Guide!!!!!!!!!!
Review: This is an excellent exam cram book. A lot of the material in this book was actually on the exam! I was so excited when I passed my A+ exam. Becuase of the amount of questions I got right the test stopped before I got to the end. Great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Incorrect information
Review: This might be a good book for the test. I just finished about one-third of the book, but I've already found quite a number of faults of the content. For example, the author seemed to mix memory address space and I/O address space together (P69). The description of "memory-mapped I/O" is not at all accurate. On page 45, his statement that SRAM was used in SIMM is apparently wrong. It would be better if there is a website for the errata.
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful
Review: This slim volume is geared towards helping you pass the test, and it definitely helps. Lots of good tid-bits and factoids that do appear on the actual exam.
The A+ manual from Sybex--which is much larger and denser--has a slew of info that will help you learn more about computers and networking, but there is a bunch of stuff the author leaves out that will leave you scratching your head at exam time.
As far as the A+ test itself, this book is the way to go.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable Yet Flawed
Review: Well, I can't say that this book hasn't helped me in my preparation for the A+ exams. It does provide a full overview of what you should expect, while downplaying those technical areas that are not likely to appear on the exam. It's not perfect, but it was my primary study guide and I did pass both A+ exams. The biggest issue I have with the book concerns its halfhearted online errata webpage. A good text book that discusses any particular subject in the computer realm ought to have a comprehensive errata webpage for a list of up-to-date misprints and errors. And that webpage should link to a form (or an e-mail address) where a reader can submit what they believe is wrong in the book. The errata page for Crayton's book doesn't include even half of the errors in the book, and does not appear to care for any feedback from anyone who paid for the book. Here's one: Page 207: Table 10.2 - The list of DOS Commands and Switches. The switch /S is listed as one that tells XCOPY to copy system files. A quick look at the output of the command XCOPY /? will tell you that the XCOPY switch /S "copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones". The accompanying CD has some practice exams, but these seem like halfhearted attempts as well. The grammar in many of the practice questions is terrible. They seem to have been translated to English from Mandarin. You can download better practice exams for free from the internet. The edition that I'm reviewing covers the 2001 objectives. Hopefully, a new edition will appear soon which will include updated material for CompTIA's 2003 objectives that will become that basis for new exams in the latter half of the year. This book is well organized and well written and it has worked very well for me, but it needs to be better. For now, supplement this book with a healthy dose of PC and Windows experience, if you plan to take the exams by late third quarter of 2003.
Rating:
Summary: Better than all other A+ books out there...
Review: While preparing for my A+ exams, I read the All-In-One A+ book by M. Meyers, I read the A+ Exam Cram new book, I read the A+ Dummies book. This book, A+ Adaptive Exams, does a better job than any of these other books in actually preparing one for the real live exams. It was right on target with the Operating Systems Technologies part of the test. I highly recommend this book to anyone.
| 
