A+ All in one certification exam guide (CompTIA) Michael Meyers 3rd+edition (Mcgraw Hill 2001)
The best A+ Certification guide in the field just got better.
Because, let’s face it; in terms of walking you through the computer from the ground up, there wasn’t anything better out there. Other A+ guides will fling random tables of processors and numbers at you as if you were a dartboard, hoping that maybe a couple of facts will stick; Michael Meyers’s All-In-One A+ Certification Exam Guide starts by showing you the same sets of problems that faced the original designers of the PC. You have just designed a chip that can handle thousands of calculations per second. Now how do you talk to it? How do you get other components to communicate with it? How do you know when it’s listening?
By the time you finished the previous editions, you knew all of the answers–and better than that, you understood why the hundreds of processor types were so hinky. You had been faced with the same hurdles that the designers had to face, and you’d had the solutions explained to you–all in a delightful, easy-to-digest format. And furthermore, you’d had that same treatment given to every part of the PC, from the monitor all the way down to the motherboard. If you got confused, a wealth of pictures would show you the difference between an RJ-45 and an RJ-11 jack.
The only problem was that it was a little out of date, but you could forgive it for that. Everything else was so amazingly strong, and the A+ exam itself tends to be a little behind the technology curve anyway–so it was a forgivable sin.
Sin no more, my friends, and read on–the latest edition of this book isn’t quite cutting edge, but it deals with Windows 2000, 3-D video cards, surround sound speakers, and burnable CDs. You might not find all of these listed on the A+ exam, but there they are nonetheless.
Which is, come to think of it, another strength of this book: It goes beyond the normal testable topics and really wants you to know what problems you’re likely to face as an actual technician in the real world. Meyers gives lots of hands-on advice, frankly admitting that this topic is still tested but he’s not quite sure why, telling you that power supplies can be repaired (and should be) even if the test says otherwise, and generally giving copious examples from his tech experience to show “what can go wrong.”
In fact, if a major criticism can be leveled at this book nowadays, it’s that it might go a bit too in-depth at times; Meyers’s zeal to show you everything he knows about computers makes it possible to get lost in the wealth of information and not focus on critically-tested subjects. But keep in mind that if you truly understand even 60 percent of this book, you’ll pass the exam with flying colors–it’s that good.
The book has ten questions at the end of every chapter that aren’t modeled specifically after the A+ exam, but they are fairly tough questions nonetheless. There’s also a CD that has the standard array of video clips and test questions, but it also has several tech utilities that Meyers himself recommends–a great value.
In short, this is simply one of the best test-prep books on the market for any exam, and it’s also one of the few books that’s completely honest: It is, when it comes down to it, an all-in-one guide. Buy this and you will pass. Highly recommended. –William Steinmetz
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