Any suggestions/resources/advice?

From your scores , You are strong in Networking , Security , and Operational Procedure. Hardware , Troubleshooting Repair & Maintenance , and Operating System and Software are the areas you need to work on. A good side book and study guide is a great choice. Flash cards are a helping hand as well. If you have access to a computer that you can tinker with and take apart that would give you some hands on hardware time. But do not let your score get you down. Identify your weak point and strengthen them. Focus more on those weak points during study , also you should be getting some type of feed back from your practice test , AKA if you get a question wrong it tells you why you got it wrong , what was the right answer , and why the other answers are the wrong answers. This feed back can be of a tremendous help, mainly the responses for why this answer is right and these are wrong. What I do is write this feed back down and learn it for each question I got wrong on a practice test. And also (and this is just my point of view ) No set of books or classes can make up for what hands on experience gets you. To actually work with the technology that you are learning on a everyday basics , and getting to know the technology psychically is very helpful. Once you are comfortable psychically with the technology the books and classes come naturally.

I do not know what your computer setup is , But if you have a beefy system you can setup a VM lab with Windows 2000 , XP, Vista, and Win7. This will allow you to to tinker with every OS inside and out . Do what ever you like DEL System files and replace them . Make dir , remove dir's , copy files and dir's. All with out BLOWING UP YOUR current OS. VM is great , it give you EXP with installing the Operating system , and what a clean or even a upgrade is like in a home environment (deployment of Windows and other OS's are a little different in a enterprise/cooperate environment). But for the A+ this is a great way to learn .

Practicing your craft on a daily basics ( day in and day out ) will give you what you need, There is a Famous saying , and this is not my quote. The quote is " If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree . I would spend 6 hours sharping my Axe" . Get to really know the troubleshooting process. You should have a really good understanding on weather the problem is a software problem , or a hardware problem. I know this all seems like a lot to learn , but the more you work with the Technology , the more you read your books and study guides , the more hands on you get from practicing every day. Trust me after a while of doing this things will just come nature. I was reading a book the other night , and the guys was talking about we all have 3 levels of learning . The 1st LV is when we understand to do something. The 2nd LV is When we seek new ways to do what we already understand how to do . And the 3rd Lv is when we have mastered numerous ways of doing what we understand.
Just keep at it and I am sure you will pass

If you have any questions for me you can email me at tony.melton83@gmail.com

You are not ready for A+ exam.

Before taking a real exam, I would strongly suggest you be able to "ace" any practice exam(s) you are using... 100%. On the way to researching one of those practice questions should provide a broader background for any variation of the question, the subject or material found in a real exam. The question you dismiss as "probably won't be on the exam" could be the points which determine if you pass barely or fail miserably.

The point is you have the opportunity to research all your weak areas when using a practice exam. Understand that the real exam test is more likely than not, very aware of practice exam out in the wild. So the questions you find on a real exam should be different, even if they are the same the wording may be different or the correct response might be the negative of the what you may find on a real exam.

Going in for a "for pay" exam too soon is just a waste of money and can sap your confidence as well.

I know that humbling feeling all to well, deltaa. Thinking that I was progressing along well with my Microsoft 70-680 studies, I finished my 1st trial exam earlier today using a interactive CD that came along with one of my books. Humbling indeed!

I configured the test engine to give me the correct answer before I went to the next question. Some material I knew well. In some cases I knew the material but didn't read the question well enough to answer it correctly. Then there was the material I obviously need to study more. Without taking a pre-test, I would not have known my deficiencies.

The earlier contributions by @zenner and @tony_melton are right on. Just keep on truck'in with your studies. Learn from different sources, and test yourself as much as possible. I found that several of the symptoms described in the two text books I studied were referenced in the actual A+ exams. So make some flash cards describing a problem being experienced (hardware, OS or network), and likely causes and resolutions. There will be a lot of Windows questions -- so be at least familiar with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

To see the type of questions in the areas you need to study more, you can start the practice exam again and then go to the question list and sort the questions by objective.

I even printed those lists of questions and for some areas I even wrote down what type of question it is (for example: how to access a certain Windows utility, question about a command line utility, questions about windows OS versions , hardware specification questions). I tought this might be helpfull to get an overview on the type of questions you can expect on the exam. Mayby I'm just waisting my time though I don't know if it will really help.

It is too bad the official practice exam doesn't let you see exactly which questions you awnsered incorrectly. What I do if I really wan't to know the correct awnser is to just take the test and only awnser that particular question. If the total score is then 1 correct awnser, you know you awnsered was correct. Unfortunatly it takes quite some time to do this for a lot of questions.

Where can I get practice exams like this one?

Free and not-free practice exams available through the internet. Many textbooks on the subject come with CD's containing practice exams also.

CompTIA has practice exams. http://certification.comptia.org/Training/testingcenters/samplequestions.aspx. The screenshot that began this posting comes from the CompTIA A+ practice exam I think.

Thanks bokuyo

I did a Google search and was able to find the answers to the practice test questions w/explanations. Hope this helps: http://quizlet.com/2027294/measure-up-2 ... ash-cards/

You don't need to score exactly 100% to be ready for the exam...any exam. But getting at least 85% should be good enough for the A+

I'd highly recommend Mike Meyers practice exams because they are the only A+ exams i've come across which don't have any mistakes or typos in them. The rest i've seen from the likes of sybex, transcender, learnsmart are just plain crap. Makes me wonder if they actually know the subject matter themselves.