Here's a complete guide to passing your CompTIA A-plus certification. Starting off with the exam objectives. This is an official document that CompTIA releases for all their certification exams and this is what I would use as the baseline for your studying.
Essentially, it will highlight every single objective or domain on the exam and if you aren't fully familiar with the setup of the CompTIA A plus certification exam, I've covered that in a previous video which I can link down below. But essentially, think of the exam objectives as a very high level vocational exam. vocabulary list about the topics that you'll expect to encounter on the exam, along with all the concepts and topics that you'll need to know.
This can be used as a checklist as you're studying, especially if you're brand new to IT, since the CompTIA 8 Plus is really that beginner level IT certification for those who have no previous experience or background. I really think using the exam objectives as a study guide will really help because everything you need to know for the exam is on this specific document. Now, of course, this document is isn't enough to be the only thing to go through as you're studying. There are plenty of free resources out there as well as paid resources.
I would start with Professor Messer's A-plus certification playlist. He has certifications on many different CompTIA certification exams and I also studied his material for my Security Plus certification when I was studying for it at the time. And it's completely free on YouTube as well as on his website. So definitely take advantage of it.
It is a great, great resource completely for free. And your study process is also... highly going to depend on how you prefer to study.
For example, some people prefer video content, some people prefer reading a textbook, and personally I recommend doing both because when you think about this certification, there's a lot of material crammed into two exams and you really want to diversify the study material that you use. And by the way, all the study resources that I mentioned in this video will be linked in the description below. For example, when I studied for my Security Plus certification, I studied with an online course.
I also rented a CompTIA textbook as well as doing a bunch of... bunch of practice study exams. So because of this, I also recommend using the CompTIA All-in-One A-plus Certification Textbook.
You can buy or rent this on Amazon, as well as CompTIA A-plus Practice Exam Guides. This will give you an idea of what kinds of questions to expect, and again, a lot of the questions on these certification exams can sometimes tend to be a little bit vague, can sometimes tend to be tricky, and you really want to get down to language of the questions that you'll expect to see. on the exams before you actually take the exam because and this is especially true for the CompTIA A plus certification because there are two exams so if you aren't used to their structure of their questions then you may end up paying for it by paying for extra certification exam fees if you don't pass during the first try and typically buying a CompTIA A plus practice exam guide with practice questions is going to be a lot cheaper than paying that exam fee all over again which I believe is a around $200 something for each exam try.
And for taking both of the ATMs that are part of the A+, that's more than $400 just for the exam fees. So you definitely want to be as prepared as possible and spend $20 or $30 on a practice exam guide rather than potentially dishing out another $200 some dollars. CompTIA also has their own official resources for the CompTIA A+, but typically these are going to be in the hundreds to thousands of dollars range. And I know this is typically going to be out of the reach. range out of the price range for people who are just getting started especially if you haven't had any previous IT experience it may be harder to drop that amount of money for exam prep and that is why I recommend going with lower cost options or even free options like professor messer's course since there's a lot of that out there for you to take advantage of besides paying for the official study resources which I think are relatively just as good because I never use official resources for my security plus but I also able to pass on a first try so it's definitely not a requirement that you have to go for official resources when you study for their certifications.
Our next step is your study schedule and your exam date. So because the exam is split, this is one of the first things you want to start with and you really want to be realistic with your estimates. For example, when I was studying for my certification, I was studying for about three to four months before I took my exam and the first half of that I was studying on and off which means some days I may not be studying.
other days I'll study a bunch and it wasn't until the last month and a half before my certification that I was really studying every single day and trying to do at least a few practice questions a day so that I can get used to the language used on the exam. Once you finalize all the study material that you want to use, split it into chunks and see how long it would really take you realistically and I don't want you to schedule five hours of studying a day if you're realistically not going to be studying five hours a day which I don't think most people are. Especially if you're working full-time, if you're a student, if you're working part-time, if you have family obligations, there's a lot of things in life that may come up and that can get in the way of your studying.
But obviously you don't want to say that you're going to take the exam in a year and just study for it really slowly because by the end of that year you're probably not even going to remember the material that you studied way in the beginning. So it has to be a realistic grade, but it also can't be too rushed or too slow paced. I would say you're a complete beginner.
I think two to three months is probably a good amount of time to study from beginning to end for your CompTIA A plus certification. While there is a lot of material, this is supposed to be a beginner IT certification so it's not going to be going as in-depth as other more advanced certifications in IT or cybersecurity. But again don't forget that this is for two exams so you could be someone who studies all the material and then takes the exams back to back.
Or you can be someone who studies for the material and then takes it and then study the material for the second exam and then take that one. So it's really up to you how you decide to split it. Personally, I like to study for things all at once if I know that the material is going to be relevant. But whatever you decide to do, make sure you're studying. Make sure your study plan works for you and your schedule.
Even just studying for 30 minutes to an hour a day in the beginning and then ramping it up to two to three hours. especially going towards your exam date, is probably going to be the most realistic. And I would say the last week before you take your exam, make sure you're spending a lot of time doing practice questions. I mentioned this already but practice questions are really your holy grail, your saving grace, or at least they were mine when I was studying for my certification. It gave me an idea of what I can expect to get on the exam because I was able to see how many actually got wrong.
what areas i needed touching up on as well as the topics that just weren't sticking in my head or topics that i knew i wouldn't be able to remember as well even after you finish studying all the material when you start taking those practice exams they're going to give you an idea of the topics that you need to brush up on or go back and reread before you take the official exam all right so that is it for this video let me know if you guys have any other questions in the comments below and hopefully this gave you a clear path on studying for your Comp.DAA Plus certification, study resources, as well as how to set your study schedule. Let me know in the comments below if you guys have any other questions and I'm trying my best to get back to you as soon as I can. Good luck on studying!
I'm wishing you guys all the best. Thank you guys so much for watching and if this video was helpful to you, please consider liking and subscribing. I post videos every Wednesdays and Sundays at 12 p.m. and hopefully I'll see you guys in my next video.