In this highly fast-paced and competitive world, an individual needs to acquire each and every possible opportunity to distinguish himself or herself from the competition in the job market. This is quite true for the IT job market as well, as IT students and professionals seek accredited certifications to boost their profile. CompTIA has been in the game of conducting and providing certifications for decades now, and one of it’s most sought out certifications is the CompTIA A+ certification which is distributed into two segments named CompTIA A+ 901 and CompTIA A+ 902. This certification certifies the IT specialist skill of handling a variety of systems, networks and servers, along with showing that the certification holder is now technically sound and ready for the professional world. The CompTIA A+ 901 primarily covers PC hardware, mobile device hardware and networking and troubleshooting hardware while the CompTIA A+ 902 is based on operating and setting up operating systems like Windows, and also consists of security and cloud computing. The CompTIA A+ certification is ideal for technical support and IT operational roles, and in this article, we will be discussing a study guide, which will act as a proper approach for the certification examination.

Hardware and Operating System Fundamentals

Any student should start his or her studies with the fundamentals, and for this examination, it is essential to get the fundamentals related to hardware and operating systems right. Computer System components, device connections and interfaces and storage devices are few of the fundamentals related to hardware, which would be tested in CompTIA A+ 901, while personal computer operating systems, windows operating systems and security, control panel and also command line tools are the fundamentals falling under the umbrella of operating system, tested in the CompTIA A+ 902 test.

Operational Procedures

Moving on, an important part of the hardware aspect and an important element of the study guide is understanding the operational procedures, which includes the basic maintenance tools, electrical and environment safety, handling materials and also ensuring a professional usage backed with effective communication.

Peripheral components and system components

Furthermore, what any student cannot omit from his or her study plan is extensively going through peripheral components, which involve the installation and configuration of display devices, input devices, expansion cards and multimedia devices. These devices are also referred to as monitors, speakers, keyboards and hard disks. Linked with this is the internal system configuration, which determines the actual operational capability and capacity of a system. Therefore, it is essential to know how to manage these system components consisting of motherboards, CPUs and Cooling systems, power supplies, RAM types and features and system BIOS.

Installation and Configuration

After all of the above-mentioned devices have been installed along with all the core internal system components, it is time to finally install and configure the operating system. Installing an operating system such as Windows is perhaps one of the most asked tasks from any IT specialist, that is why the study guide consists of implementing virtualization, upgrading the windows after installation and also doing the windows preventative maintenance. Moreover, linked with configuration is creating and customizing client environment based on the client’s requirements or if there are no special requirements then using the standardized environments.

Networking technologies

A significant part of the CompTIA A+ 901 and CompTIA A+ 902 is understanding the networking technologies associated with the systems. In your CompTIA training, it is essential to include the physical network connections, TCP/IP and networking connectivity. Additionally ports and protocols, setting up and configuring windows networking and also utilizing the various networking tools also falls in the category of networking technologies. Students should also be well aware of how to install, configure and maintain SOHO networks and optimize and regulate it’s security. Networking is a core component of CompTIA certifications and CompTIA trainings, and so any potential IT specialist should get his or her basics perfected through these certifications so that they can easily develop upon these skills for further advanced components and applications of networking.

Mobile and Laptop computing

On the go usage of computing is rising on a rapid pace, because of which this study guide also includes dealing with specific requirements and issues of laptops and mobile devices as well. As a student you must understand a laptop’s hardware and component along with installing and configuring the hardware components. Configuration of mobile devices is also a significant requirement of the examination.

Troubleshooting hardware components and issues

Furthermore, students are required to extensively prepare for the troubleshooting of hardware components as well as troubleshooting system-wide issues. This phase of your preparation would deal with understanding the theory behind troubleshooting, then putting that to the practical test by troubleshooting video and display devices along with laptops and printers. You should also be able to troubleshoot hard drives and RAID arrays and various system components as well. Knowing how to navigate yourself through the constantly popping up issues throughout the systems in any organization is one of the most essential tasks of a system and IT specialist, therefore one should make sure to effectively prepare for it. The CompTIA A+ 902 segment specifically also deals with troubleshooting operating systems, wired and wireless networks and the commonly occurring security issues.

Security

Finally, the last component of the study guide for your CompTIA training consist of dealing with system security. This component deals with security fundamentals and theory which is then backed up by practical implementation by ensuring effective security protection measures have been installed and configured within the system along with ensuring the security of the workplace. The number of internal and external threats to any system has been increasing dramatically, because of which any IT specialist should know how to deal with those threats and implement measures which not only prevents the data from being corrupted or stolen but also ensures that the entire system consisting of the hardware and software components work smoothly and efficiently.

So this was an exhaustive study guide which would definitely help you in nailing your CompTIA A+ 901 and CompTIA A+ 902 examinations.