CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201) exam objectives
CompTIA publishes 5 exam domains with official weightings. The weight tells you where your marks come from — study time should roughly follow it.
220-1201Beginner
1. Mobile Devices
13%- Laptop hardware: replacing displays, batteries, keyboards, storage and memory
- Display components — panel types, backlight, digitiser, webcam and antenna placement
- Accessories and ports: docking stations vs port replicators, USB-C and Thunderbolt behaviour
- Mobile connectivity and synchronisation, including corporate email and MDM enrolment
2. Networking
23%- Ports and protocols worth knowing cold — HTTP/S, SSH, RDP, DNS, DHCP, SMB, SMTP, IMAP
- Hardware: switches, routers, access points, firewalls, PoE injectors and patch panels
- Wireless standards and frequencies, channel choice, and long-range fixed wireless
- IP addressing: IPv4 vs IPv6, static vs DHCP, APIPA, subnet masks and default gateways
3. Hardware
25%- Cable and connector types, and which one a given situation actually calls for
- Storage: HDD vs SSD vs NVMe form factors, and RAID 0/1/5/10 trade-offs
- Motherboards, CPUs, RAM types and channel configuration, expansion cards, BIOS/UEFI settings
- Power supplies — wattage sizing, rails, connector types — and printer hardware and consumables
4. Virtualization and Cloud Computing
11%- Cloud models: public, private, hybrid and community; IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
- Cloud characteristics — elasticity, metered use, shared resources, high availability
- Client-side virtualization: hypervisor types, resource requirements, purpose of a sandbox
- Virtual desktop infrastructure, and when a VDI beats a physical build
5. Hardware and Network Troubleshooting
28%- The CompTIA troubleshooting methodology — and applying its steps in the published order
- Diagnosing motherboard, RAM, CPU and power symptoms: POST behaviour, no boot, intermittent shutdown
- Storage and RAID failure symptoms, including clicking drives, SMART warnings and failed arrays
- Display and network faults: dim or flickering screens, limited connectivity, intermittent wireless, printer output defects
Our practice exam distributes its questions across these exact domains at these weightings — so your score per domain tells you precisely where you stand.
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