CompTIA A+ Certification Premium Bundle: All-in-One Exam Guide, Tenth Edition with Online Access Code for Performance-Based Simulations, Video Training, and Practice Exams (Exams 220-1001 & 220-1002) 10th Edition, Kindle Edition

I had very high hopes for this study material but I have serious concerns about misleading advertising about the actual online content vs. what I was led to believe by the book cover about what would be available online upon buying this bundle.I got the Premium bundle mostly because of the online content offered, such as the simulations, videos, and practice exams. The exams were robust but this purchase only gave me ~partial access~ to all of the available the videos and simulations, perhaps 20% at most!Once I set up my account, it became clear that in order to gain access to ALL of the videos and simulations, I had to pay more. A LOT more! (I opted out). The claim on the book cover is that you get access to 750+ practice questions, 200+ simulations and 60 episodes of video training but when I went in there to review them, most of them were greyed out/blocked and indicated that you have to pay more to unlock them. I contacted the seller here who responded promptly with instructions to contact McGraw Hill. I decided to skip it because I wasn’t going to fork over another couple hundred bucks to open up the rest of the online content. I almost returned the book but chose to keep it and read it, and made use of what content was available, insteadI read the ENTIRE book, cover to cover, all 1,524 pages in about three weeks, and I believe that it did help refresh my memory and skills (after being an IT professional for about 7 years), but by itself, it did not do enough to give me everything I needed to pass the exams. Let me tell you that it took laser-sharp focus, persistence, and a high degree of self-discipline to read this book that way. I don’t regret it, but you should gauge your willingness to dedicate your attention to do it.Also, the simulations wouldn’t run until I downloaded and installed both Adobe Flash Player and Java. It was a royal pain to figure that out and configure my PC.I see that another review here talks about how disorganized the book is. If you are learning how to be a technician, it’s great. If you are looking to pass the A+ exam, not-so-much. It jumps back and forth between topics on Core 1 vs. Core 2 in order to prioritize the format toward a logical, topic-related structure designed to instruct newbie IT professionals in IT-related subject matter.I signed up for CERTBLASTER, which (for about $100) gave me approximately 1,850 practice questions for the two exams, compared to the (roughly estimated) 750 questions that come with the online practice exam materials here. I think the questions in Certblaster were more closely aligned with the actual questions I encountered on the actual tests (Core 1 and Core 2) that I took yesterday (9-16). I passed the tests, but only about 20% of the questions were closely duplicated. The rest I had to wing-it. Thank goodness for having 7 years’ experience as a Sys Admin!What I can say about this experience that was positive is that I only paid $117 for the Premium Bundle. If you look at the back cover you will see that full price is $175. The A+ Certification basic text (without the online content) sells full price for $60.My recommendation: certblaster is better than this product, but there is a lot to be said for actual work experience and going ahead and footing the bill for bootcamp which is how I got my A+ certification in 2000 with only about a year of IT experience.Good luck!

Ignore the people saying it's a scam. The book specifies (see my pic) that there are two access codes; one in the appendix of the book which leads to sample content, and another which you'll receive via email which unlocks all of the content for the bundle.Overall, it's a good book and the online content is very helpful. Don't skip the bundle just because a few reviewers didn't read the instructions.

This book makes it extremely hard to concentrate on one exam at a time. Everything is in some random order. If you want to study for 1001 you have to go through the entire book on a scavenger hunt. Then come back and do the same for 1002. Books like A+ Complete Review Guide are broken into two sections: one for 1001 and one for 1002. This was pure laziness on the author's part.

I read the other reviews, and I thought, okay, so I just need to follow the instructions correctly and I'll get all the premium content. Well, that's short of true. It's more complicated than that. I'm attaching screenshots to help explain. I am logged in for these. They're taken on my phone, but the desktop is the same. This is, of course, after using the code that was emailed to me.So the website, hub.totalsem.com, has several tabs. Some of them are included in this bundle, some are not. You get the TotalTester tab, which has practice tests. You get the Premium Edition tab, which sounds good but is extremely outdated. You can watch the free videos on the total video tab, but I think you can do that without being logged in.Total video tab - these are the videos by Mike Meyers that correlate with the book for sale here. What I was able to watch was excellent. It seems to be the same info as the book; but I do better with videos. I'm a slow reader. After watching the videos (no reading), I passed the first two end of chapters questions 100%. Other than studying the more complex images, I think it would be the same for later chapters. You can watch the videos labeled free, but not the rest. To access the rest costs $349 on the Totalsem website. Honestly, this is the content I wanted the most and what I thought I was paying for with this bundle.Total sims tab: according to the email Totalsem sent me, "the premium edition does not use the Total Sims or Total videos tabs for access." Like the videos tab, you can access a few here and there that say free. However, I don't know that they're worth much because they are not by Mike Myers, have nothing to do with this book, and most importantly are about Vista and Windows 7, or equally dated hardware.Premium Ed: this is the main thing that you're paying for, and worth the least. Again, nothing to do with this book, and extremely outdated. I would not pay a dime for this content unless you plan to work with very old computers.TotalTester tab: this is the most valuable thing I saw here, and the reason I gave the product a second star. I liked the explanations of why the answers were right/wrong. It was very thorough. However, I only got to review half of my test when it timed out and asked me to log onto the website again, even though I had it on keep me logged in. I couldn't get back to the results.Summary: while I like the practice tests, there seem to be a lot of free ones out there. The rest of the content that you get is either already free or worthless. Thus, I plan on asking Amazon for a refund and buying the ebook by itself.

NOT A SCAM. Fast shipping. Book was in perfect condition.I decided to review and share how to find the product key. Hate to see anyone spend and not get the full value of your money.There are TWO product keys in the book. Yes, they didn't do a good job of making this fool-proof.The first attached picture is labeled with 1, 2, 3.1. Generic product key that gives you access to free stuff. This is is printed on the inside of the hardcover in the back of the book.2. Prime access product key that gives you access to all the training videos, sim, and tests. This is printed on the book sleeve on the inside of the back page.3. 800 number for customer support.Happy studying.

Scam Alert: after receiving this book I went online and was shocked when I realised its only about 20% of test content and simulations are available online, you have to pay more for the rest. Very misleading marketing. Don't buy this bundle, it not what it say it is.

I like the book, but some parts explain stuff like you're a kid. About the premium content, I'm not that happy. Once I activated it, I found that most of the video classes from Mike you have to buy it... A lot. You start the chapter and there is 2 or 3 videos from mike explaining a little bit, but theres like more 6 or 7 videos that you have to buy. And the TotalVideo its not cheap at all.As the time passes I will see if this bundle was a waste of money. There's a ton of online contect for free besides this...

I have just received my book and was weary about not having access to all the content based on previous reviews. I can confirm that it is all there on the website. People just haven't read the instructions and entered the correct serial numbers. The first serial is for creating a basic account then the other serial that you enter on another link gives you premium access to ALL the content! - Can't wait to get stuck into it again :D

Honesty time, I bought this book and was worried that it might really be the scam people were claiming that they did not get full access to online content. I received the book and at the back of the book with the hard cardboard, I found one code but other one was missing from the sleeve(as shown in picture). I thought I was scammed too, but didn't lose my nerves and didn't write a bad review here. I contacted Amazon support and turns out it was a defective piece after all, and they replaced it for me at no charge and the new book has 2 codes now, one of free account and one for full access. So please be aware that you are getting both codes, they are not scamming you, it is just a defective piece if you received only 1 code.

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