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Nitin Mahajan
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September 17, 2026
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Plenty of people put three months into CompTIA A+ and still walk out of the testing center with a fail. It is rare because they did not work hard. It is because the work had no shape. They rewatched videos they already understood, reread chapters on hardware they could recite in their sleep, and never once measured where the real gaps were. A retake costs you the exam fee again, plus another few weeks, plus the sting of it. Practice tests fix this, but only if you use them as a diagnostic instrument and not as flashcards. What follows is a six-step way to run your prep around practice tests, aimed at the two exams you actually have to pass: Core 1 (220-1201) and Core 2 (220-1202).
Short answer: unmeasured effort feels productive but changes nothing. A+ is two exams, each with a maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes, and each one weights its domains differently. If you spread your hours evenly across every topic, you overspend on things you already know and underspend on the two or three domains that will sink you. The fix is to let a test tell you where you stand before you build a plan, then keep testing to confirm you are moving. Every step below produces a number you can act on.
Start with a diagnostic. Before you open a single study note, sit one full-length practice test for the core you are tackling first, timed, no pausing, no looking things up. Give it 60 to 90 minutes and treat it like the real thing. You will feel underprepared, and that is the point.
What you want from this is not the overall score. It is the per-domain breakdown. A diagnostic that tells you you scored 70 percent on Hardware but 40 percent on Networking has just written the first draft of your study plan for you. Write down each domain percentage. Those numbers are your baseline, and in six weeks, you will be glad you kept them.
Do this once per core. A Core 1 diagnostic and a Core 2 diagnostic measure completely different content, so you need a separate reading for each.
Combine two things: how weak you were, and how much the exam cares about that domain.
CompTIA publishes the exact weight of every domain, and the smart move is to pour the most hours into domains that are both heavy on the exam and weak in your diagnostic. A domain worth 11 percent that you already half-know does not deserve the same attention as a 28 percent domain you bombed.
Here are the current weightings, pulled from the published CompTIA A+ exam objectives and the official A+ certification page:
Core 1 (220-1201) DomainWeightCore 2 (220-1202) DomainWeightHardware and Network Troubleshooting28%Operating Systems28%Hardware25%Security28%Networking23%Software Troubleshooting23%Mobile Devices13%Operational Procedures21%Virtualization and Cloud Computing11%
Rank your domains by a simple rule: exam weight multiplied by how far your diagnostic score sits below a pass. The domain with the biggest gap gets the first and largest block of study time. On Core 1, that is often Hardware and Network Troubleshooting, since it is the heaviest domain and it depends on knowing everything else. On Core 2, Operating Systems and Security together are 56 percent of the exam, so weakness there is not survivable.
Practice by domain first, full exam later. Early on, a mixed 90-question set just tells you again that you are weak in the same places. Instead, filter your practice tests to a single domain and drill it until the score climbs, then move to the next domain on your ranked list. This is where a good question bank matters, because you want to filter by domain and get fresh questions each session rather than memorizing a fixed set.
Set a rough question-count target per domain that tracks the exam weight. If you plan to work through about 500 practice questions on Core 1 during the build phase, split them by weight: roughly 140 on Hardware and Network Troubleshooting, 125 on Hardware, 115 on Networking, 65 on Mobile Devices, and 55 on Virtualization and Cloud. Heavier domains earn more reps.
When a domain is filling in, reinforce the facts with spaced repetition, the review technique of seeing material again at widening intervals, which is well supported for holding on to the kind of factual detail A+ tests.
Once your domain scores are respectable, switch to full-length timed runs and copy the real conditions exactly. That means a maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes, which works out to about one minute per question. Both cores use multiple-choice and performance-based questions (PBQs), the hands-on simulations where you configure or troubleshoot something rather than pick a letter.
Use a PBQ-first protocol with a twist. PBQs sit at the start of the real exam and eat time, so on the actual test, many people flag them, answer every multiple-choice question first, then return to the PBQs with the time they have left. Practice that exact sequence: skim the PBQs, bank the fast multiple-choice points, then come back. The only way that habit is there on exam day is if you rehearsed it under a running clock. A test you pause halfway through teaches you nothing about pacing.
Track every timed attempt in one place, broken down by domain, so you can see the trend rather than a single score. A simple performance dashboard is just a table: date, overall score, and a score for each domain. After four or five attempts, you can watch Security climb from 45 to 78 while Operational Procedures holds steady, and that tells you precisely where the next study block goes. Without the per-domain view, you are guessing.
This is where the platform you practice on does real work. Crucial Exams is one of the tools whose Test Mode returns a per-domain performance breakdown on an exam-aligned question bank, which is exactly what turns this tracking step into something you can read at a glance instead of guesswork. If you are running a CompTIA A+ Core 2 practice test there, the 220-1202 (V15) bank holds roughly 1,000 questions with 174 flashcards and seven PBQs built as hands-on drag-and-drop exercises that mirror the real simulations. Test Mode scores each attempt immediately and shows which domain dragged the run down, while a separate Study Mode walks one question at a time with explanations for the drilling phase. Run a 220-1202 practice test in Test Mode, read the domain breakdown, and you will always know the next thing to fix. The platform was custom-built by a former software developer and keeps its bank aligned to the current objectives, so the domains you see match the ones you will be scored on.
The last week is for simulations, not new material. Sit three full-length timed tests across the final week, each one under real conditions, and after each one, review only the questions you missed and the ones you guessed. New content this late rarely sticks and mostly rattles you.
Use the real pass bar as your target. Core 1 passes at 675 on a 100 to 900 scale, and Core 2 passes at 700 on the same scale, so aim to clear those comfortably on your simulations, not by a single point. If two of your three final simulations land above the line for that core, you are ready to book it. If they do not, push the exam a week and drill the domain that keeps costing you. A confident retake beats a hopeful first attempt.
This compresses both cores into six weeks, which is aggressive if you are working full-time. Stretch it to eight or ten weeks by giving each core an extra build week. The shape stays the same: diagnose, drill weakest domains, then simulate.
WeekFocusPractice WorkTimed Full-Length Test1Core 1 diagnostic, then the weakest two domainsDomain-filtered sets, about 150 questionsDiagnostic at the start of the week2Core 1 remaining domainsDomain-filtered sets, about 150 questionsOne full-length at week's end3Core 1 final weekReview missed questions onlyThree simulations, then sit in Core 14Core 2 diagnostic, then the weakest two domainsDomain-filtered sets, about 150 questionsDiagnostic at the start of the week5Core 2 remaining domainsDomain-filtered sets, about 150 questionsOne full-length at week's end6Core 2 final weekReview missed questions onlyThree simulations, then sit in Core 2
There is no official number, but community discussion on forums like r/CompTIA suggests most people who pass work through somewhere between 800 and 1,500 questions across Core 1 and Core 2 combined. Treat that as a rough band, not a target. Volume matters less than whether your per-domain scores are consistently above the pass line.
About once a week during the build phase, so you can see the trend without burning out, and three times during the final week before each exam. Full-length runs are for measuring pace and readiness. The day-to-day learning happens in shorter, domain-filtered sessions.
No. Practice tests are there to diagnose gaps, not to be memorized. If you recognize an answer because you saw that exact question before, it tells you nothing about whether you understand the concept. Fill the gaps a test exposes with notes, videos, and hands-on labs, then confirm the fix with fresh questions.