CompTIA A+ Rapid Review (Exam 220-801 and Exam 220-802) by Darril Gibson (Microsoft Press)

 March 5, 2013

After Microsoft’s CompTIA A+ Training Kit, here I am reviewing the Microsoft’s A+ Rapid Review. This book is really similar to the book CompTIA Security+ Rapid Review (this too by Microsoft Press).

Darril Gibson, the book’s author, have compressed a huge amount of contents in a (relatively) small amount of pages (411). This is the first big difference in respect of the Security+ Rapid Review, since this book has more contents per page (and about the double of pages).

This book has the CAQC seal so it should have gone through a rigorous approval process to confirm the content meets exam objectives, language standards, necessary hands-on exercises and labs and applicable Instructional Design standards. So the book covers all the certification objectives, but I’m not sure if it does or not cover all the possible questions.

As I said in the CompTIA Security+ Rapid Review, I did like the question-answer approach, since you understand immediately which is your level, therefore you can understand which parts you have to cover more and which less. What I did not liked at all about this structure is the layout. Every question is answered right below the question itself. I think this is a very bad approach, since is really hard to answer to a True-or-False question without looking at the answer that you know is there. I think they should have putted all the chapter questions and after all the chapter answers.

At the end of the day, I would suggest this book to anyone is looking to pass the CompTIA A+ exam. I think it’s very useful to use it combined with the CompTIA A+ Training Kit since they complete one the other.

You can find the book at O’Reilly website.

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book as part of the O’Reilly Blogger Program