Passed both exams finally last Friday which felt wonderful . Now to try and enter the job market again but I still want to continue onto Net+ for sure. Professor Messer's website was a huge help with this, I felt like I finally understood the material on a more personable or human level. Another book I don't hear anyone talk about that I really liked was a different Mike Myers' book, A+ Certification Passport. Kind of the bigger book but more summarized I guess. Between the two my confidence really picked up, but I still skimmed by on the both tests lol, I'm just not a test taker. But it feels good knowing the card is finally coming and it's something nice to put on the resume.

Good work. I'm taking the 701 this weekend. Any advice on content?

Hmm, I think this website sets you up pretty good for the 701 honestly. The biggest thing is there aren't to many just straight forward questions, and that's where A+ got me most of the time. I would say just really be able to know your hardware and how it functions within the computer because they will give you a brief scenario and you will want to pick the most logically basic first step. If the computer doesn't turn monday, or the printer doesn't print or jams or something what is the FIRST step giving the strange facts they give you. They key thing is not to read into anything at all, if you can do that you will do great. The questions are what they are lol, that is a hard concept for me grasp, don't put any words in compTIA's mouth, that will get you the second choice, probably wrong answer.

You might get a few identify this part questions, but those seemed to be really rare now. You click on a picture they give you and have do identify what you see or where the certain part they are talking about is on the motherboard or something but maybe just one or two I used to see them a lot more.

I found the exams to have points of emphasis. In my exams (taken in January) the points of emphasis were: power supplies, network printers, the CompTIA steps to troubleshooting (know them backwards and forwards!!). Furthermore, know the new functions that are in Windows 7 as well as what they do, as well as know the names and minimum hardware requirements of all the Windows XP and Windows 7 editions. The exam may have changed over the past couple months. But if I had to do it all over again, I'd single out the above areas to review before taking the exams.

I walked away thinking the exam was broad in scope and covered hardware, elementary networking, and the Windows OS. It is a fair test; challenging but not impossibly challenging. Before you leave the exam site you will be given a score showing how well you did in particular sections. If you do not pass, study your weakest areas like a maniac and take the exam again.

Read the questions and the answers carefully -- fast, but don't skim. There may be more than one good answer, but there is only one BEST answer. The information provided in the questions (even a single word) may provide the hint you need to select the best answer. There were a few troubleshooting questions that I was about to answer one way, but upon rereading the question I thought "Ahh ... these #@$%! are trying to trick me -- and I selected another (the best!) answer.

Lastly, you can mark questions for review. If time remains, you are shown a list of these questions. You can jump back to these questions to validate or change your answers. I found it useful to review questions I had to guess at or felt a little uncertain about. That way I was not spending too much time on any single question. In a couple cases, I later recalled facts that I had trouble with earlier on in the exam. I didn't have to spend valuable time trying to find the previously answered question to reconsider my answer.

I'm glad to have taken my two exams on separate days. I scheduled it that way to give me a day to review any areas I might have done poorly on. The exams are very broad in scope and jump around from subject to subject. My (few) brain cells really got a workout. Although I could have survived taking the 2nd exam on the same day, my score on it would have certainly been affected due to weariness and impatience.

By the way .... GOOD LUCK on the exam!

good job and good luck in your job search