Is the NEW CompTIA A+ Exam Worth It? (220-1201 and 220-1202)

Key Takeaways

now I'm not sure if they've announced this yet but there will be a new CompTIA A+ exam in 2025 now I never saw a tweet or a blog post or really they didn't tell me anything I just happened to be on their website and boom there it was new exam coming spring 2025 in this video we're going to kind of talk about that see what's different it's been 3 years should you get the CT what is the CT we'll talk about that and if you're still studying the old one should you change get your coffee ready we're going to dive in but first let's go comp te your red a little bit okay now we're ready to talk about ktia so here it is the big announcement coming spring 2025 and it's addressing one of the biggest problems people have with the exam specifically lineus Tech tips and then it's it was old it was mentioning old things it was only talking about Windows 10 Windows 11 wasn't even on there they're going to update that and right here they tell you what's going to happen and increase focus on security networking and software troubleshooting things that should reflect the current job market specifically for help Des people well first what even is this what is the CompTIA A+ well for me it was my first it certification now if you're new to the IT world I love this aspect of it for many it people if you want to demonstrate a skill you will go out and get an IT certification you'll study for it learn all the things about it so for example the A+ in fact let's just go there right now scroll down a little bit what will you learn they're going to cover a whole lot of everything to hey what's a computer to hey what's a network you got the picture very basic and it certifications start this basic but they get very extreme validating and proving that you know something it's kind of like a college degree except it's better and cheaper in my opinion comment below if you have a different opinion or comment below if you agree with me like And subscribe now the reason that A+ was my first certification is normally when you first get into it that first role you want to have is entry-level help desk meaning you're going to start at a company and you're helping people with their it problems you're the first line of defense people are regular workers are at their desk they're typing along boom error or something's wrong I don't know pick up their phone they call it guess who picks up that phone you and you barely know what you're doing but you try to figure it out and if you don't know you go ask someone who does greatest job in the world for learning the compta plus certification is one of the best certifications to help you land that job now I got mine a long time ago I forgot how long ago it was video editor throw up my little card yeah they give you a card or they used to you know what I still recommend it but hold on new version 2025 do I still recommend this you probably know I'm already going to but let's at least look at it and uh talk it out now first things first just know the A+ is actually two certification exams you have to pass two of those bad boys am I holding up three fingers two to get that certification the new ones are going to be the 220 121 and the 220 d202 which that's going to be so weird getting used to that naming scheme the old ones are the 1101 and 1102 question when are those going to retire meaning people right now are probably studying for these exams it's a very popular exam for many people this is their first it certification so if you're studying for this do you stop like cuz the new one's going to be available in Spring 2025 are they going to cut it off right then probably not they'll probably have a pretty I mean not a terribly long grace period but maybe six to seven months I don't know I'm just guessing uh again it's kind of weird they just didn't advertise it at all they just kind of put it out there I'm getting hyped up but I genuinely love this it stuff and I've had a lot of coffee that combo but they're they're not saying when they're going to retire so as of now it's probably safe to keep studying for the old exams if you're going to be taking them within the next probably 6 months don't hold me to that I don't really know but in my experience that's what happens but all is not lost if you're currently in the middle of studying for the old exams the 2023 Edition is that what we're going to call it no 2022 yeah they were launched in April of 2022 if you're currently in the middle of of studying for that likely very likely there will not be a huge difference between this exam and the new one let's break down what's different now typically when you are studying for an IT certification they will make available to you what's called the exam objectives they won't tell you what's on the exam but they will tell you what they expect you to know and a very high overview bullet pointed list bullet pointed is that how you say that so here's the 121 exam objectives the new boy notice we still are in draft mode so keep in mind what I'm showing you here could change and it's really funny that I could just get the draft mode no gave it to me it was just online I'm hoping by the time I launch this video they've talked about it but I still haven't seen anything about it now it's interesting I'm not sure if this is on the old one let me see if it was no it wasn't so they're adding a little note here about troubleshooting methodology which I think actually kind of cool it's very important knowing how to troubleshoot that's like the game the name of the game when you're in it so they decided not to include actually okay hold on I misreading this there used to be a troubleshooting methodology included in the exam and the study material they would produce themselves they did a little workshop analysis and determined that they weren't going to put it in there so they're not going to test on it but there is going to be an emphasis on troubleshooting so it's not going to be a formal objective so they they still include it but not officially you know so it's not going to it's not going to be in the official exam objectives which we can take a look at those now so notice we have five big domains covering things like mobile devices networking Hardware visualization Hardware Network troubleshooting this is what's going to be covered in the first exam I think this is the same as the previous one it is and here's kind of a gander of what it looks like so if you look at networking you're going to be covering things like ports Wi-Fi frequencies [Music] okay I just had a meeting where was I I forgot oh yeah we were comparing exam objectives for the CompTIA A+ I didn't forget about you all right here's a little comparison between the 1101 and the 11 oh I can't even get it right the 1201 I dropped my phone type of content you get on my second Channel okay so what are we seeing here networking hey I love the increase 3% network engineering is back I keep saying it actually that was the only significant increase or increase at all let's go networking now what specifically do they change on this exam so on the mobile device side it looks like they're focusing more on MDM mobile device management and they're having a focus on BYOD or bring your own device which back in the day you join a company they normally give you a phone now everyone has their own very expensive phone and they have bring your own device policies how can we secure your device to make sure that you don't break our company and it looks like let's see they're doing a bit of a security flare to NFC and Biometrics for for networking our biggest change they're focusing a lot more on IPv6 bringing in some info on aipa and I think that's it cuz all this is uh relatable to ipv4 on the hardware side USBC all day every day they're focusing a lot more on that and Legacy stuff like VGA which is still around but not so much focus and older USB standards less Focus I wanted to say gone but no they're still there just less Focus oh one new thing with cloud is the multi-tenancy boom right here so that's existing in more than one Cloud having your environment up there everywhere I guess back in 2022 we didn't care about that we were like on AWS only but now we're like we're everywhere I think you got the picture I don't know why I keep harping on that point let's move on to the exam two so exam one sum it up I said let's move on I want to talk about it again oh wait I think I missed something in networking putting the coffee to my face because it's nice and warm no I didn't so to sum it up they updated it to reflect new technologies kicked out some old it's what you might expect with a higher emphasis on networking because hey networking is the most important part of it did I just say that yeah it's true let's move on to 220 1202 that's what you call it right yes again we're still in draft mode now the second exam is more about operating systems security software troubleshooting and it operations now both exams have their boring Parts but the it operations part just kills me let's see how they uh they change things around first let's see if they have any weird stuff they put at the beginning like they did on the other exam I I do get annoyed by this they say hey all the stuff in bullet of format it's not exhaustive they may update it put some stuff in there that's not in this road map they do have a little note here on when Windows 11 it's like hey sometimes we might be talking about Windows 10 but Windows 11 is the focus about time what's funny is I I didn't look at this before recommend experience is 12 months of hands-on experience in it support specialist role um no you don't need that I think it's the other way around you would need the certification to get that first job to get that hands-on experience all right here's our chat TPT breakdown of the comparison between the stuff operating systems are going down a few points three to be exact but we're focusing on Windows 11 security up three points software troubleshooting up one operational procedures thank goodness we're going down a peg key takeaway here is a security definitely has a bigger Focus security and networking my two favorite things networking was in the other exam let's do a quick High overview of what's different my camera has 10% battery I have to hurry up so big things first operating systems Windows 11 they've added some new file systems the RFS or resilient file system and xfs the extended file system was that not on the old exam no it wasn't that's crazy it's a good addition windows 10 is still very much part of the exam and it looks like they're having deeper shell command on the Mac side they've added more security focuses like the rapid security response rsr on the Linux side it seems like they have more commands and they cover the best text editor in in Linux non-negotiable Nano on the security side our biggest change bringing in some buzzword this time we got zero trust where do they put that yep there it is a zero trust model being added and privileged access management they throwing some stuff on time based onetime passwords or top some new attack vectors including QR code fishing business email compromise what does that exactly mean becc a form of fishing attack where a criminal attempts to trick a senior executive or budget holder into transferring funds or revealing sensitive information that sounds like regular fishing oh they impersonate a CEO or vendor okay I guess it's a little bit different a potato potato oh and they've added supply chain attacks in operational procedures they've added some AI stuff explain basic concepts related to artificial intelligence interesting okay that's a big update you got to explain public versus private Ai and the implications you know data security data source data privacy um bias hallucinations accuracy the appropriate use plagiarism that's fun so you got to be AI literate in the A+ okay so in summary Windows 11 got it that's probably the biggest win here we can shut some people up about it security we added some more attack factors we got to look out for added some zero trust Pam and the software troubleshooting side there were better PC and malware security troubleshooting scenarios of course AI Concepts added to operational procedures now keep in mind similar to what CompTIA said about itself earlier that these are just bullet points um they can add to or remove certain things from the exam at will this probably is a good view of what the exam might be like but it could also be very different from what we've seen in the past we'll never know until we take it now as soon as I can take that I'm going to take that exam and come back and tell you guys about it but not like lus did only tell you things that I can tell you my overall experience and how it Compares now here's my favorite thing about the differences right there's not a lot of differences because here's the thing guys an IT the concepts the foundations those have been the same for a while understanding operating systems Linux that hasn't changed much at all except for the importance of knowing it you're learning AI but like learning networking knowing what CPU Ram hard drives ssds all that stuff it's core it's Central and you're going to take that base knowledge and just grow on top of that as you move through additional it certifications As you move in through your career now let's talk about one of the biggest things that's price how much is this going to cost I don't know they haven't said anything yet let me see if actually I can find it um maybe they posted it somewhere and they don't want me to see it here some Google Dorking no not finding anything although I am finding that some books that are going to be released later on are not going to be released until August so here's the thing I don't anticipate it being totally different from the pricing we have now right now base price $250 per exam that is steep I know and it wasn't very different for me when I took these exams and I even failed one and that really hurt because I was just getting started in my career that hit me hard so is $56 worth it is that the math I think that's right right is $56 worth it not including the training cuz like you have to learn the stuff somewhere right is that worth it yes and no I mentioned in my career road map video which may or may not already be up you can check it out right here that the most important thing is learning the knowledge the CompTIA A+ is your introduction to it if you're brand spanking new to it and really have no idea what it means you didn't know that there were paths you can go down you thought it was just like it's like oh that it guy no there's not just it guys there's different roles doing a so many different things the A+ is your Buffet to sample these and see which ones you like for example I took my A+ I found that I loved networking so my next few certifications were very focused on networking Technologies going down the Cisco path so the knowledge is good the certification do you actually need to take the exam and get the certification maybe you don't need this to get a job on the help desk but if you're having trouble getting a job on the help desk get this you can put it on your resume it will look good and also you know you may already be Advanced enough to skip this like you may have dabbled in computers you may have built your own PC maybe you have a Rasberry Pi only you can really know where you're at and you may be able to skip the A+ and go to a higher level certification like maybe the network plus CCNA Security Plus another thing where do you find training for this So currently the old A+ we're going to call it the old A+ now you can find training for that Professor master has a free A+ course on YouTube it's amazing I am actually currently creating an A+ course on my own Academy still very much in the building phase we're doing something different there that's all I can say but if you want to come be part of that building check it out it's 12 bucks a month we're posting content every week and it's something I wish was there that I wish was around when I first started that's all I can say and it's not just the A+ on there but I say all that to say this hasn't really even been announced yet so training for the new exam the CompTIA A+ 2025 the 121 and the 122 where we going to find that well I can tell you this I will now as I'm creating the A+ make sure that everything I make reflects the new objective so you can look at mine and go okay that's going to be new good and awesome how soon is everyone else going to have their stuff up I don't know we'll have to wait and see I imagine compta will have their stuff up pretty soon because they try to coincide their release of their exam with their own learning content I will say oh their learning content's expensive and quite boring now I haven't seen the new stuff yet but judging from the old stuff pretty dry hey maybe the new stuff is amazing who knows but however big asterisk is that my asterisk hand I don't know so the Core Concepts of networking Cloud computers in general those don't change so if you're already learning and studying through a CompTIA A+ book or a video course keep going and yeah try to get the old A+ like if you are already on a trajectory to get your A+ for the 2022 Edition keep going for that try to make that like don't don't let your progress be stopped or hampered getting the A+ 2022 Edition will look as good on your resume as getting the A+ 2025 Edition they don't have versions on your resume when they give you that certification you're A+ certified for 3 years and if you just happen to miss the deadline I don't know when they're going to cut it off it's fine I think you'll be fine the 2025 Edition will be there not very different and I will be creating content to match that books and other training will follow so long and short let me try to sum this up let me land this plane on my other YouTube channel my primary YouTube channel I try to be more tight with my videos meaning that I don't ramble I'm kind of rambling in this one just kind of experimenting with content just trying to get content out uh without too much of an overhead that's why this is a bit different anyway see I wouldn't say stuff like that before it's more like a live stream so I'm a big fan of the A+ I think the 2025 version brings well needed updates I don't know what the exam experience is going to be like it'd be very cool if the exam experience itself was more practical less Theory odds are it probably will end up being more of the same just more modern content the A+ is still the biggest name in the game for entry level it it's still extremely valuable people still look for it when they're hiring for help desk or entry level it if you like to start your career and actually figure out how to get that job check out my Academy that's what we're going to be specializing in oh I've said too much oh well that's all I got I'll catch you in the next video