Test your basic knowledge |

Comptia A + Certification

Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. A diagram showing the purpose of each wire in a connector.






2. In a CPU - special memory that resides outside the CPU's core and is used to temporarily store instructions and data in order to increase the processing speed. Also called Level 2 (L2) cache and Level 3 (L3) cache - depending on the design of the CPU






3. A pointing device - often built into a laptop - which is a smooth rectangular panel over which you move your finger to move the pointer on the display.






4. An LCD display setting that adjusts the viewable area of the display vertically.






5. A key on a laptop that - when pressed along with the FN key - changes the laptop display brightness at the hardware level. On some laptops - when this key combination is pressed - a small brightness control panel will display on the screen. Use the u






6. A CPU power-saving mode that allows a CPU to reduce its speed without losing its place so it does not stop working altogether. SMM also allows the CPU to trigger power saving in other components.






7. The term used for dynamic space allocation that can be formatted with a file system.






8. A server that manages DNS names.






9. The original digital versatile disc (DVD) encoding format used for movies sold at retail.






10. A type of riser card that connects directly into a motherboard and adds no additional functionality of its own - but extends the expansion bus and allows expansion cards to be added in a different physical orientation.






11. Memory chips that use a special Rambus channel that has a data transfer rate of 800 MHz. A double channel width results in a 1.6 GHz data transfer. RDRAM sticks use special RIMM slots.






12. A disk type introduced with Windows 2000 that contains space allocated in volumes without the limits imposed on basic disks. On a dynamic disk - the number of volumes are unlimited - and a volume can extend to include available space on any hard disk






13. Aka Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).






14. A specialized type of memory used only with video adapters.






15. A firewall consisting of software that you can install on any computer - as opposed to the software built into a hardware firewall. Also called personal firewalls because they are designed to be installed on individual desktop computers.






16. The circuit board in a computer to which all other components directly or indirectly connect. Also called a mainboard - system board - mobo - or planar board.






17. A type of KVM switch that controls computers over a distance that is a function of the cabling and protocols it uses. The two types of switches are local remote KVM switch and KVM over IP.






18. Aka network address translation.






19. Aka peripheral component interconnect.






20. A data encryption technology used for securing data transmitted over the Internet.






21. The wireless nodes (including the WAP) communicating together in infrastructure mode.






22. A PCMCIA card standard that comes in two interfaces: PCIe and USB 2.0.






23. A primary partition that is marked for use by the system during startup. Windows operating systems can only be booted from an active partition.






24. The former name of the Parallel AT Attachment (PATA) interface standard.






25. A Windows command prompt utility that uses the WFP (Windows 2000 and Windows XP) or WRP (Windows Vista and Windows 7) service to scan and verify the versions of all protected system files after you restart your computer.






26. A modulator/demodulator device that allows computers to communicate with one another over existing phone lines.






27. A local bus designed for video only - it provides a direct link between the processor and the video card - giving the video card direct access to main memory.






28. Aka systray.






29. A hardware device or a program that monitors and records a user's every keystroke - usually without the user's knowledge.






30. Aka local area network.






31. A coherent and concentrated light beam - also simply called a laser.






32. A user interface that takes advantage of the video system's graphics capabilities for manipulated graphic elements that represent objects and tasks.






33. Aka Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol.






34. The filename for the System Configuration Utility - which allows you to test various scenarios for Windows startup for troubleshooting purposes.






35. A DVD of any type that can store data on both sides of the disc.






36. Aka Voice over IP (VoIP).






37. Small text files a Web browser saves on the local hard drive at the request of a Website. Cookies can contain information that will be used the next time the user connects to the Website.






38. A tool for testing if a cable can connect properly end-to-end and to determine if a cable has a short. These tools are available for a variety of cable types.






39. Aka Small Computer System Interface.






40. In reference to computers - the pathways or methods for what goes into a computer in the form of data and instructions and similarly what comes out of the computer in many forms - including an onscreen display - a printout sent to a printer - or data






41. A technology for ROM that can be reprogrammed using special software.






42. A data encryption technology used for securing data transmitted over the Internet. TLS succeeded SSL.






43. An early method for addressing the disparity between the drive geometry supported by PC BIOSs and the physical geometry of drives.






44. A device that converts DC current to AC. An inverter is required in a laptop to provide the AC current required by the display.






45. An Advanced Options menu choice that appears under certain circumstances. When available - selecting this option will return to the OS Choices menu (OS Loader menu).






46. Aka paging file.






47. Aka motherboard.






48. Aka alternating current.






49. Introduced in 1993 - the most common expansion bus architecture in PCs in the mid 1990s. It transfers data in parallel over a data bus that is either 32- or 64-bits wide.






50. Aka optical character recognition.