A+ Exam Prep Book/CD Package: Comptia Certified Computer Technician Book

If you're looking for a book that really gets you in-depth technical info--and not just the surface scum that passes for "tech" you'll find in most other guides--the A+ Exam Prep is an excellent place to start. You see, previous editions of the A+ Exam Prep were utterly packed to the brim with technological wizardry that you wouldn't find anywhere else--but that was their downfall. They were packed with so much technology that you couldn't separate the testable gold from the "nice to know, but CompTIA doesn't care" chaff, resulting in a book that was a fine reference but not at all useful for those taking the test. But Coriolis has put a hard day's work into this edition, rearranging everything so that the testable facts stand out like the guys with the glowing sticks at the end of the runway, waving you on to a passing grade, yet still handing out many of the advanced facts that will ultimately help you in your techie career. The book is written in a journeyman's style; it's readable and it gets the points across nicely, but it's nothing to write home about. Concepts are explained adequately and the evolution of the various PC advances are detailed with enough care that the reader should be able to get it--but unfortunately, the book is very light on illustrations and charts, and the illustrations tend to be simple line drawings and not photographs, which may ultimately hurt book-learning techies, who can read all about AGP cards in this tome without ever seeing what an actual card looks like. A few more charts would be nice to clarify the many lists of numbers and computer parts that make up the more tedious sections of A+ preparation. The real strength of the book, though, is its depth of format, going beyond the pale to give never-tested topics like the pinouts for DTE connectors and the topologies of uninterruptible power supplies; very few topics on the A+ aren't cove red in solid depth. What is left out seems odd, however; the section on hard drives, for example, seems sparse when it comes to methods of interleaving and sector translations, both of which have been known to pop up once in a while on previous versions of the A+. The A+ Exam Prep has some nice sections to make up for such strange losses, however, including troubleshooting flowcharts and--a very handy feature--suggested real-world projects that the test-taker can do to prepare himself both for the exam and real-world issues. Each chapter ends with a set of 20 review questions; they're fairly simple and not anywhere near what you can expect to see on the exam ("What type of printer can print on multipart forms?"). And the answers to the questions, sadly, aren't up to the quality of Coriolis' Exam Crams, where they not only give the correct answers but also explain why the other answers were wrong. If you're the sort who prepares by obsessing over reams of sample questions, you may need a supplement. In short, this weighty tome is a solid reference that will help you prepare for the exam but it will also come in handy long after the exams are over. --William A. SteinmetzRead More