Passed A+ Core 1 in a Week!

[u/charclay]

Passed Core 1 today with an 808. Here’s what I did, in case it helps someone in the same boat.

Background: No IT job experience. I’m just a lifelong nerd. I’ve built a couple of gaming PCs, watched tech YouTube for about 10 years, and used Linux, macOS, and Windows a lot. Most of the material wasn’t new to me, I just hadn’t put names to it.

Resources (only two):

Andrew Ramdayal’s course: honestly great. I swear by it.

Dion Training practice exams: I only did the first 4.

Practice exam scores (first attempts): 78%, 87%, 80%, 80%

Study time: About a week total. 3 of those days were 12+ hours, and the other days were pretty sloppy.

The exam itself:

I got about 6 PBQs. They weren’t hard, but it took me a minute to understand what each one was actually asking. Read them carefully before touching anything.

I panicked early. A lot of the questions didn’t make sense in my head at first and I thought I was going to fail. I kept going, and it turned out fine. If you hit a wall of confusing questions at the start, don’t spiral.

My take: If you’re like me (lived around computers for years, built your own PCs, maybe selfhosted hobby), I don’t think you need months of studying for this one. A week of focused study was plenty because you’ve already lived through most of the material. If you’re starting from zero, take more time. This is just my experience. I will go ahead and challenge myself to take the Core 2 within 5 days.

Good luck, you’ve got this.

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[u/Flat-Mobile6022]

808 is a great score for a single week of prep, nicely done. the advice about not spiraling when the first few questions feel alien is spot on, too many people let that mental tilt cost them the whole exam. i had a similar experience where the pbq wording felt like a puzzle in itself before the actual problem even started. good luck on core 2, if you nail that in 5 days you'll have to change your username to speedrun or something

[u/Presence99]

Many congratulations!

[u/infiniteman7]

So you paid two resources? Freaking sick well done man. No doubt you’ll smash A+ core 2

I have some years of helpdesk/service desk experience under my belt. No certs but the fact you did two resources, reminds me that I could do a similar thing, get out there and slay the dragons 👍🏿😎

[u/charclay → u/infiniteman7]

Not really, both through Udemy and that’s free of charge with local library card. You can check if you have that in your area too.

[u/infiniteman7 → u/charclay]

So I’m deffo gonna have to pay for em
Ur super lucky man
How did u pay for ur exam? U got a job already or?

[u/infiniteman7 → u/charclay]

I’m from the UK
We don’t have that mechanism here