If you're watching this video, then you're probably interested
in the CompTIA A+ certification.
And why wouldn't you be, because it
is one of the most popular IT certifications in the world.
It's commonly used to introduce people
to information technology or to provide people
with a way to show that they know the skills required
to get a job working in IT.
This is a great starting point in the industry.
And if you look at job postings in your area,
you'll probably see a number of jobs where an A+ certification
is a prerequisite or a requirement for getting that
position.
The A+ certification is managed by CompTIA or the Computing
Technology Industry Association.
Not only is CompTIA one of the largest providers of IT
certifications, their certifications
are also vendor neutral.
This means that the information in the exam objectives
is not specific to a single vendor,
but instead covers many different vendors across IT.
CompTIA members include manufacturers, resellers,
training organizations, and anyone
else who would be interested in making sure
that we have a solid foundation of IT professionals.
The CompTIA has certifications are recognized around the world
and you'll find their exams are available
in many different languages.
I'm James Messer and this is the first video in my A+ series
available on professormesser.com or on the Professor Messer
YouTube channel.
My experience is almost exclusively
in information technology going back
to supercomputer operations, hardware troubleshooting,
networking, and cybersecurity.
I take all of the experience that I've
had throughout my career and I build
IT training courses to help others get a job
or get a better job.
This course covers two exams that are associated with the A+
certification.
The first is the two 220-1101, we sometimes
refer to this as the Core 1 exam.
And there's the 220-1102 that is called the Core 2 exam.
Both of these exams were released on April the 20th
of 2022.
This course is designed to give you
everything you need to learn from the CompTIA exam
objectives and it's separated into small bit-sized videos.
So you can find exactly the information
you're ready to learn.
You can watch a short video on those topics.
And then you can decide whether to watch another video
or to come back later and watch more of those.
All of the videos for these courses
are available on the Professor Messer website
or on our YouTube channel.
Every minute of every video is available in either
of those locations and nothing is held behind in a paywall.
You won't be asked for any registration
and there's nothing additional need to provide.
You simply need to visit one of those sites
and you can immediately start watching the training course.
Our goal is to create a strong foundation of IT professionals.
And we think creating this training is something
that can give people an opportunity
to get their very first job in IT
or to move up into a better job in it.
There's no catches with this course.
There's nothing extra you need to purchase and nothing
you need to do extra to be able to watch the videos.
Every single video is available for you
to watch online for free.
Some folks would like to have an offline version of this course
and there are video and audio options available for purchase.
There's also a set of course notes
you can purchase in either PDF or a physical book format that
includes the text, the diagrams, and the charts
that I have in all of my videos.
All of these resources, and much more
on my website at professormesser.com
The 220-1101 exam, or Core 1 exam,
consists of five different domains.
Mobile devices, networking, hardware, virtualization
and cloud computing, and hardware
and network troubleshooting.
This exam is 90 minutes long and you'll
get a maximum of 90 questions on the exam,
although you could get fewer than 90 questions.
The passing score you're looking for
is a 675 on a scale from 100 to 900.
The other exam that you'll need to take
is the 220-1102, or Core 2 exam, it consists of four domains.
Operating systems, security, software troubleshooting,
and operational procedures.
This is also a 90 minute exam with a maximum of 90 questions.
Although the scale is the same between 100 and 900,
you have to do a little bit better on the Core 2 exam,
passing score is a 700.
Both of these exams have to be passed for you to be A+
certified.
There's no time restriction between these two exams.
You could take these exams years apart if you wanted to
and there's no order that you have to go through.
You could take Core 1 first and then core second.
Or you could reverse this and take Core 2 first and then take
Core 1.
The goal is to simply pass both of these exams and as long
as you're able to do that you're A+ certified.
The only requirement is you must pass both of these exams
before they're retired.
These exams were released on April the 20th of 2022
and usually these exams stay around about 3 and 1/2 years.
I would recommend looking at the CompTIA website
to confirm what the retirement date might be,
especially if you're planning to take this exam sometime
near that retirement date.
CompTIA keeps everything updated on their website
so if you're interested in getting a copy of the exam
objectives or you want to learn more about the retirement
dates you'll find them all on comptia.org.
The exam itself may be a little different than industry exams
that you've taken in the past.
You're probably already familiar with multiple choice type
questions.
Those are the questions that have multiple answers
to choose from and those are very common on industry
certification exams.
These exams also have a handful of performance
based questions right at the beginning of the exam.
These usually require you to complete a task.
They may put you at a command prompt and ask you
to perform a function.
These might be matching questions or sorting questions.
They may have drag and drop components
associated with them.
But the point is that they can ask you anything from the exam
objectives in any form.
And although these aren't multiple choice based questions
all of the information that you need to learn
comes directly from the CompTIA exam objectives.
The CompTIA exam objectives are available on the comptia.org
website.
And you may be asked anything from those set of objectives
on the exam.
So make sure you're very familiar with all
of the topics listed in those exam objectives
and you'll do just fine on the exam.
Before you start your studies and perhaps before you go in
to take your exam make sure you reference these exam
objectives.
They provide an extensive list of everything
you need to know to be successful with this exam.
You also want to find a good video training course to watch
and we cover every single topic from those CompTIA exam
objectives.
We also recommend that you get a good book
so that you can have even more information about each
of these exam topics.
There are a number of good books available on the market
and we have our recommendations available on the Professor
Messer website.
We also recommend you get as much hands on as possible.
You might want to use your own equipment for this
and we can recommend a number of labs
that are available on the Professor Messer website.
And lastly, it's always good before booking your exam
that you test yourself to see just how much information
you've retained throughout your studies.
Make sure you try some practice exams
so that what to expect when you walk into the exam room.
You'll notice the videos in my course
have a number in the title of the video.
That number is associated with the CompTIA exam objectives
so that you can go to the objectives,
find the number you're interested in,
and then locate the video about that topic very quickly.
You'll find that most books won't follow this structure
but they do provide a cross-reference
between the information that's in a particular book chapter
and which exam objectives are associated with those topics.
This makes it very easy to find the video
that you may be looking for because the exact numbers will
be listed in your book.
So the method you use for studying is really up to you.
If you'd like to jump around from video topic
to video topic, you can do it that way.
Or you can simply start at the beginning of our video series
and watch it all the way through one video at a time.
During this video we've mentioned how important
it is to have the CompTIA exam objectives because they tell
you everything you need to know for the exams, which means
this also makes a very good checklist before booking
your exam.
You can go through the entire objective list
and know exactly which topics might need a little more study
before booking your exam.
If you're planning to take this exam at a testing center
you may want to take some time to stop by and see what type
of testing environment they have.
It's always good to make sure you're
comfortable with the location of the testing center
and that the testing center itself
is providing the best possible environment for taking an exam.
Of course, you could also take your exam at home
but there are a few additional requirements for setting up
your testing environment.
So make sure you read through the rules on the CompTIA
website to know exactly how to set up the testing
environment at your home.
There are a number of rules on the CompTIA website
that you need to be aware of, especially with online testing,
so make sure you read through those before booking
your online exam.
And it might be a good idea to arrive early at the testing
center or be ready to take your exam prior to the test start
time.
This will give you some time to look over your notes
and become more comfortable with the testing environment.
Whether you're taking the test at home or at a testing center
it's important that this is the best possible environment
to take a test.
If there's any problem with any noises or the testing
environment make sure those are taken care of immediately
before the test is over.
Since you're taking a 90 minute exam that
could have a maximum of 90 questions,
time management becomes very important.
You may want to consider jumping over
the first handful of performance based questions
and coming back to them at the end.
Make sure you take advantage of the mark option
for each individual question, which
allows you to mark that question to easily find it later on.
If your time management has gone well then
you're able to go through every single question of the exam
again before submitting it for grading.
The details of your exam results and a list
of the topics you may have missed on the exam
are available in your exam results online.
So that's it.
You're now ready to get started with your A+ studies.
You'll find everything you need on our website
at professormesser.com.
Our entire training course is available on the Professor
Messer website and all of the videos
are indexed to match the CompTIA exam objectives.
We provide closed captioning and transcripts
for all of the videos as well.
We also have a quick link to the exam objectives,
you'll find it at professormesser.com/objectives.
There's a link there that will take you
to the CompTIA website.
There's also a chat available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
You can find me and others that are available to answer
your questions at professormesser.com/discord.
Make sure you check our event calendar
so you know exactly when our next live study group will be.
We do study groups each month for A+, network+,
and security+.
You can find that on our website at
professormesser.com/calendar.
We hope this introduction has giving you all the information
you need to be able to jump into our training course and earn
your A+ certification.
Best of luck with your studies and we'll
see you in the training course.