Logical IT Certification Progression
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@momurda said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
My A+ book (bought early-mid 00's) was like 1200 pages long, had pinouts of all 240 pins on ddr and other 'stuff only hw design engineers need to know' in there. I tried memorizing all that, then took the test and was like 'wtf did i waste dozens of hours studying for'. Took like 20 minutes and i think i got nearly all questions right.
THey haven't invented DDR yet when I took mine. I'm surprised that DDR is even in it now. Are they that up to date?
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@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
I have never taken any of the CompTIA tests. I started with the MCSA NT 4.0 back in 94-95. The network portions I thought, at the time, did a pretty decent job of teaching you networking.
They removed that networking requirement when the Network+ was released.
I was wondering about that.
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yeah, even the MS tests back in the mid 90's had things that would rarely if ever been seen.
I recall thumbing through the A+ books in the late 90's.. I was like "really? I need to learn pinouts - seems ridiculous" and I dropped the book and walked away.
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@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
yeah, even the MS tests back in the mid 90's had things that would rarely if ever been seen.
I recall thumbing through the A+ books in the late 90's.. I was like "really? I need to learn pinouts - seems ridiculous" and I dropped the book and walked away.
Yeah that was annoying learning pinouts...
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Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
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@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
Kids today have no idea how hard IT was in general. It was freaking HARD back in the day! No Google, hardware never worked, just installing an OS could take a week.
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@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
I remember 0 IRQs now even though I had to know them for the test lol.
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@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
I remember 0 IRQs now even though I had to know them for the test lol.
Oh yeah, totally useless. Never needed them back then either. I've been in IT since 1989 and that's never been useful, not once.
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I rarely need to worry about Parallel connections or Serial COM mappings.
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@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
I remember 0 IRQs now even though I had to know them for the test lol.
Oh yeah, totally useless. Never needed them back then either. I've been in IT since 1989 and that's never been useful, not once.
really? you never had to set a video or sound card? I only learned them as I was setting up cards. Back in the mid 90's we built new PCs yearly (it would have been more often if we could afford it), Granted by the late 90s this wasn't really needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
I remember 0 IRQs now even though I had to know them for the test lol.
Oh yeah, totally useless. Never needed them back then either. I've been in IT since 1989 and that's never been useful, not once.
I am not as old as some of you guys, but what I remember is the only time you need to touch the IRQs was if there was a conflict with another device. The only way that would happen is if you installed a card, removed it. Then installed a new card and reinstalled the old one.
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@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
Kids today have no idea how hard IT was in general. It was freaking HARD back in the day! No Google, hardware never worked, just installing an OS could take a week.
Yeah. Don't forget the fun of trying to specify a free BIOS address space via dip switches on a SCSI card. That was really so much fun when they first started coming out with the first "automatic" "choose it's own IRQ/address space" things
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@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
I remember 0 IRQs now even though I had to know them for the test lol.
Oh yeah, totally useless. Never needed them back then either. I've been in IT since 1989 and that's never been useful, not once.
I am not as old as some of you guys, but what I remember is the only time you need to touch the IRQs was if there was a conflict with another device. The only way that would happen is if you installed a card, removed it. Then installed a new card and reinstalled the old one.
Yeah, not something that normal people ran into and even less likely for IT people to run into.
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@travisdh1 said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@scottalanmiller said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@Brains said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
Haha I took my A+ when we still had to memorize the IRQ Assignments. Kids these days have now idea how much easier that test is now. Still worthless, but at least it taught me all my IRQs when I was 17.
Kids today have no idea how hard IT was in general. It was freaking HARD back in the day! No Google, hardware never worked, just installing an OS could take a week.
Yeah. Don't forget the fun of trying to specify a free BIOS address space via dip switches on a SCSI card. That was really so much fun when they first started coming out with the first "automatic" "choose it's own IRQ/address space" things
Those were the days. And having to memorize the different SCSI connectors.
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I did A+ I think it was 1998. Back when the test was in two parts, one for software and other for hardware.
Sadly, I actually didn't pass hardware the first time, I didn't study as much as software side.
Hardware test definitely covered esoteric things, pinouts, BIOS settings, endless acronyms, etc. I think I still have my small notebook with like 6 pages of acronym definitions from my study books. It was insider knowledge knowing which side of the device the red pin went. 80 pin IDE cables looked amazing with good cable management and nice folds.I hate the idea of failing a test question due to not knowing useless fun facts versus actual real world issues and scenarios.
I just did Net+ only a couple years ago. I feel like the questions were a little more real world but what always gets me with tests are the ways they try to turn them into trick questions. I hate hate hate when they play silly games about "select one or more" and of course they want a precise number. Or trick you with a subtle "not" in the question and you read it too fast to notice, etc. I don't want to fail a test due to trick questions and trickery. Why can't tests just present something real and not try and trick people? They often have questions that could very well be the answer but probably not.
Example: Name the three primary components of a computer: 1) motherboard, 2) power supply, 3) cpu, 4) ram.
Um, well all of them are pretty primary, but for a stupid test question I guess they have a sliding scale or something? These kinds of questions are inconsequential, like "oh know, this guy almost thought that ram was slightly more important than power supply! Inconceivable!There were some esoteric questions in Net+ like knowing ins and outs of encryption technologies used in specific wireless protocols and which cyphers they used. I feel like this is just fun facts and hardly the kind of stuff people should have memorized for most situations.
I spent multiple evenings trying to memorize all the 802.x specs. Such a waste, kind of.I would like to go down the Microsoft tract into servers and software development I think.
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I have a Certificate 4 and a Diploma of something to do with websites (it was ages ago... not like 1989 or anything but early 00's) from the local TAFE but no industry certifications (e.g. VMware, MS, RH, Cisco etc).
I learned a lot of basic knowledge programming languages, databases, multimedia editing (cameras that had floppy disks in them!!!) and some other solid foundational stuff.
I have done training courses that lead to taking certification exams, but I've opted to not take the exams.
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@guyinpv said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
I would like to go down the Microsoft tract into servers and software development I think.
Microsoft isn't bad, but they do test a certain way. Once you learn their testing thought process, the tests are fairly easy. The first time you take a MS test, it can through you for a loop.
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@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@guyinpv said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
I would like to go down the Microsoft tract into servers and software development I think.
Microsoft isn't bad, but they do test a certain way. Once you learn their testing thought process, the tests are fairly easy. The first time you take a MS test, it can through you for a loop.
Yeah - I agree. In the NT4.0 days, the book designed for the test in question never covered the test material. I found that reading one book ahead was required (MS Press books).
As for the test itself. I think I needed something like an 820 to pass, and I got an 820 on the first MS test I took. After that, and learning the need to read ahead, they were pretty easy and I felt prepared, scored a few perfect scores, but luckily never scraped by the skin of my teeth like that first one.
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@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@guyinpv said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
I would like to go down the Microsoft tract into servers and software development I think.
Microsoft isn't bad, but they do test a certain way. Once you learn their testing thought process, the tests are fairly easy. The first time you take a MS test, it can through you for a loop.
Example of what you mean?
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@Dashrender said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@IRJ said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
@guyinpv said in Logical IT Certification Progression:
I would like to go down the Microsoft tract into servers and software development I think.
Microsoft isn't bad, but they do test a certain way. Once you learn their testing thought process, the tests are fairly easy. The first time you take a MS test, it can through you for a loop.
Yeah - I agree. In the NT4.0 days, the book designed for the test in question never covered the test material. I found that reading one book ahead was required (MS Press books).
As for the test itself. I think I needed something like an 820 to pass, and I got an 820 on the first MS test I took. After that, and learning the need to read ahead, they were pretty easy and I felt prepared, scored a few perfect scores, but luckily never scraped by the skin of my teeth like that first one.
Oh yeah, I remember that. You always needed to read at least one cert book ahead.
