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Hello Spiceheads

Long story short, there’s a young man here that ‘wants to get into IT’. I told him the best place to start is to study for the A+ Certification. In the mean time, and once he starts gaining a little knowledge, I’d start to mentor him and show him the ropes. It’s been over 10 years since I got my A+ cert and have lost track of any materials related as outdated as they may be.

Do any of you have suggestions for a good starting point for this guy?

As always, thanks in advance!

36 Spice ups
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They can check out ITPRO.TV - they offer free weekends! They have some good content.

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Professor Messer

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I wouldnt waste the time on A+

go for the network+

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I don’t think I can spice up Professor Messer enough, it is a great resource, its all free, Videos, Discord chat, Discord Live chats. Its great, you can purchase his Test guides, I did just to create some study cards.

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This sounds like someone that wouldn’t know a NIC from a DIMM, though. Have to start from the basics!

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Wouldn’t put the cart before the horse. Understand the basics of the equipment, start mentoring, then start delving into the basics of a network.

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Another one for proffessor messor, udemy sometimes do very cheap deals for the mike meyers ( think thats how its spelt) total seminars.

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Definitely go for A+ before Net+… Coming from someone whos just coming to the end of my Net course after completing A, it really gave me a good understanding of the fundamentals… N would be too much too soon for someone who sounds as though they have little to no experience in the field.

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I have some material he could have if he were to get in contact with me… tell him to shoot me a message on discord #Conjure6969 I’m happy to help, good material for A+

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I’d offer to dust off the books sitting on a shelf somewhere in my house, but they aren’t exactly current.

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When I studied for my A+, I used ExamCompass. CompTIA A+ Certification Practice Test Questions Perhaps it isn’t the best around, but it helped me enough and it also showed me that there were some asinine, completely out of touch questions and answers on the exam (particularly about building PCs for purpose. I’ll straight-up tell you that one of the answers for building a gaming PC is a “high-end sound card.” Which is completely outdated for modern gaming).

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I been working on the Security Comptia and Professor Messor has been pretty good with the videos. Listen to them buy the notes if you want or just take notes.

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When I was studying for my A+ cert, I paid for training and I also watched all of Professor Messor’s materials on it. I can say that I got more out of Messor’s stuff. He breaks it down into each section and he does a great job of explaining. I also bought his practice tests and they were extremely helpful.

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A+ is a good place to start. I had gotten mine so long ago that the material isn’t worth reading anymore. The basics of computing still apply, but the technology has pressed so far forward that current material is needed. This would definitely be the starting point before N+ since that is more advanced knowledge.

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I am fairly new to the IT world. I got my A plus about a year ago. Professor Messor as mentioned above has a lot of great free training videos. I studied for the cert through a class I took in college. I know there are some books you can buy for relatively cheap (under 100) that goes over both the hardware and software portion of the test. The certification is broken out into two tests. One software, one hardware. They both have some interactive questions to start (I worked on those last) and about 80 other questions that you have to complete in 90 minutes. Some of the questions are pretty basic knowledge. The styles of questions are a bit difficult however. A lot of questions are phrased choose the BEST answer, or choose the FIRST thing you should do. All of the answers are technically “correct”, as you will end up doing all of them, you just have to choose which option is quicker or which option you should start with in a troubleshooting process. I hope this helps!

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I agree with doing A Plus before Net Plus. You need to learn how to walk before you can run. The A Plus gives an excellent foundation for expanding into other areas of IT.

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I was going to also say Professor Messer

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Certblaster has some free notes.

Access to a windowspro computer

That should be more than enough to get started on A+

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Professor Messer was a godsend to me. I had gotten Mike Meyers courses through Udemy and they were okay, but kinda lost my attention as I felt he jumped around too much and was too casual in teaching to keep my attention. I felt Professor Messer did a great job being very methodic and straight to the teaching point. Leading up to taking my certification tests, I did sign up for ITProTV and would watch/listen to their Accelerated courses when driving to work. I passed both tests with very high scores.

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