As I’ve studied for the CompTIA A+ exams, here are the materials and processes I used.

1. CompTIA exam objectives
2. Professor Messer‘s 220-1001 Core 1 and 220-1002 Core 2 A+ Training Videos on YouTube
3. All-In-One CompTIA A+ Certification Exam Guide Tenth Edition by Mike Meyers
4. CompTIA A+ Practice Questions Exam Cram Core 1 (220-1001) and Core 2 (220-1002) by David L. Prowse
5. Professor Messer’s Study Groups – I listened to the podcast while driving across the country, but these would be pretty cool live!
6. I really liked Professor Messer’s practice exams book. His questions were the most like the ones I found on the actual exams than most of the other practice questions I used.

I started studying in March of 2020, and had some good momentum before all of the COVID craziness hit. My study time slowed down a bit because I was busy with so many other things (mom of 6 here, thank you very much… online learning is not my friend). I was ready to take the Core 1 exam by June and the Core 2 exam in July, and managed to pass each on the first try!

I really liked the material in this exam. I think if you’re new to tech, it’s a great foundational cert. I had a few people recommend starting here, and a few people say they thought it wasn’t worth it and they’d recommend skipping it. I’m really glad I started with this one instead of skipping it, and here’s why:

I kind of have a tech background… I mean, I started using computers when I was a kid (and I was a kid in the 80’s–yes, I’m dating myself here–so computers weren’t even really mainstream yet!) and I think I was about 6 when I wrote my first computer program: I thought I was hot stuff because I made an ASCII spaceship launch on the screen! When I was in my late teens I decided it would be cheaper to build a computer instead of buy one, so I bought the parts and used the instruction manuals as a guide (the internet was pretty new at the time so there weren’t a ton of online resources at the time). But then I took a few computer science classes in college and quickly realized programming–like full-on software development–was not for me, so I changed my major to math and loved that. (Full-on geek here, and proud of it!) I think if there were other tech majors besides computer science and engineering at the time I might have landed there, but alas. In the end, I graduated with a non-tech degree because, well, it’s a long story, but basically it was a time thing.

But the thing is, even though I’ve dabbled in tech over the years since then, there was still so much on the A+ exam that was either new to me or long-forgotten that is really foundational. Whatever job I end up with, I don’t want to be caught without basic foundational computer knowledge and I think the A+ prep helped me get to a position where hopefully that won’t be an issue.

I guess that was the long route to say, if you’re not sure about the A+ just go for it!