CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Sixth Edition [ハードカバー]

I spent over a week agonizing over which book to purchase to prepare for the A+ exam. I ended up choosing this because it seemed to me to be the most material for the money and because Meyers, the author, has a reputation for quality in the industry. After working through the book, I am fully satisfied, and passed the exam on the first try. This guide is extremely comprehensive, and laid out in a very logical and easy-to-use way. Meyers' writing style is very easy to read and engaging. Even dry subjects are quite readable. The included materials are also quite good, but I should mention a few caveats. The book advertises 8 practice exams, but that means two for each of the four tests. Because any one person will only take two tests (Essentials and one elective), there really are only four practice tests (however, there is so much overlap, I found taking all the tests to be helpful). Also, each practice test is only 50 questions, but the real test is 100, so each is only half a test. On the other hand, the practice tests are very accurate and the interface is just like what you'll face on test day. Also, if you purchase your exam vouchers from Meyers' website, you will not only save $30 on each test, but also get an additional two practice tests (100 questions) for each exam. Overall, I definitely recommend this book over any other you might be considering, and I plan to purchase the accompanying Network+ book to study for that test.

So I bought the book without reading the reviews. Not a good idea, but I saw the book in a store and thought I could get it cheaper here. I have no working experience in IT and this seemed to be the most comprehensive guide. It took me like 2 weeks to read the book, and I mean read the entire book and then go back and reread areas that I wasn't sure about. So I bought the vouchers for the test and went through the included practice exam for the 220-601 & 220-602 and failed them both. So I went back and looked at the areas that I missed on the practice exams and was finally able to pass them.

Next I figured I would come back here and look at the reviews to see what people thought the book missed and I got freaked out that there was no way I would pass these tests based on what the reviews said about the book. And low and behold, I got a 793 on the 601 and a 825 on the 602. I don't know what the other reviews were talking about but I have no experience working in IT and was able to pass by a good margin on both of my tests using only the book.

Mike Meyers did a great job with this book. It's written to where people of all educational levels can understand, and it's a very good refresher for those who already have a background in computers. It would also be a good "on the job" reference.
If you were to only use this book and the disk that came with it, then you should be able to easily pass the IT Technician Exam (220-602). I used ONLY this book and the included disk and I took the IT Technician Exam in March of 2008, and I got a near perfect score of 900 thanks to this book.
However, this book isn't enough to get you through the Essentials Exam unless you already have a vast knowledge of trouble shooting operating systems. I took the Essentials Exam (220-601) in March of 2008, and I would say that 90% of my version of the exam was about trouble shooting. They might as well have called it the "Trouble Shooting Operating Systems Exam". This book can't prepare you for how they're going to ask the questions on the Essentials Exam. I'm just lucky I have 10 years of general computer expericence and a 4-year bachelor's degree in CIS or this Essentials Exam could've been a complete disaster. You will be very disappointed when you see what this Essentials Exam focuses on. Instead of spending all that time reading this 1100+ page book and knowing everything in it from top to bottom, I could have just studied trouble shooting for about 4-5 hours. I took a lot of time learning all the technical aspects of every hardware component on a PC, and basically everything under the sun about the software side & operating systems and it seemed like only 10% of that was on the Essentials. To get prepared for the Essentials Exam all you need to do is focus on operating system trouble shooting, diagnostic procedures, configuring operating systems in general and for networks, and the command line interface commands. And the only commands they asked about were the commands that would help you restore and diagnose problems. They asked a lot about restoring and recovery of operating systems too.

Conclusion:
This book is great for the (220-602) IT Technician Exam, but if you don't have much experience in trouble shooting and preventive maintenance of operating systems, then to pass the (220-601) Essentials Exam I would suggest finding some supplemental sample questions off the internet and really focusing on installing, diagnostic procedures, preventive maintenance, and trouble shooting techniques for operating systems and networks.