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...Home ... Editorial ... News ..News Story Monday: June 21, 2004


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New A+ Exams Now Live


12/1/2003 -- New versions of CompTIA's A+ certification exams are now live.

The exams, Core Hardware (220-301) and OS Technologies (220-302), debuted Thursday at Prometric and Pearson Vue testing centers worldwide.

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The exams are based on the 2003 objectives released earlier this year. Several new topics -- including Windows ME, XP and recent memory, peripheral and wireless technologies -- are now covered on the exams.

Each exam contains apx. 80 questions for a possible total of 900 points, with a minimum score of 515 needed for the Hardware exam and 505 for the OS exam. Both are delivered in linear format.

The new exams instantly replaced the previous 2001 versions. CompTIA states on its Web site that candidates who already took one 2001 exam can "mix-and-match" to earn the title: "Candidates who have already passed the existing A+ Core Hardware or A+ Operating System Technologies exam (testing against the 2001 objectives) may take their second exam with the 2003 upgraded objectives and still become A+ certified."

Because CompTIA certifications do not need to be renewed, these changes do not affect those who are already A+ certified.

For a breakdown on exactly what's new in the 2003 objectives, see the CertCities.com stories here and here.

For more on CompTIA's A+ and other certification titles, go here.  -Becky Nagel



There are 12 CertCities.com user Comments for “New A+ Exams Now Live”
Page 2 of 2
12/7/03: Joe from Arizona says: Anybody take both the previous test and the newest and how do they differ?
12/8/03: Anonymous says: In several cases questions answer each other. Why 80 Q's when five are about [the same Win config file], and as a group the answers can be derived from the other questions? This happens several times in each exam. As an example of how badly these exams were built, one Q was "pick three"....from four. You've got a 75% chance on that one!!! Several typos, lots of grammar errors, and disagreement between the question and answers... Q: "How do you fix..." A's: "The drive is bad" "The user is stupid" etc. The topics are not much different than before, lots of XP as you'd expect, but a solid exam-taker can kill these with little prep. (However...the test preps that were available before 11/26 will need to be revised.) Given the high number of questions, the lack of rigor in the "choose two/three" questions, most questions containing a throw-away answer option, the references between questions, and the low passing score... it's an easier cert now. This candidate was not impressed.
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