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. Any type of computer that you can easily transport and that contains an all-in-one component layout.






2. On a circuit board - a small connector that slides down on a pair of pins jutting up from the board. Multiple pins are often side-by-side - and a jumper joins a pair of them.






3. A type of display device that includes a touch-sensitive face to accept input from the user.






4. The early standard developed by PCMCIA for credit-card-sized devices used in laptops.






5. A riser card standard that AMD - 3Com - and others introduced in 2000 to supersede AMR. It uses one PCI slot - provides accelerated audio and modem functions as well as networking - and supports multiple Ethernet NICs.






6. A password that meets certain criteria in order to be difficult to crack. One definition of a strong password is one that contains at least eight characters - includes a combination of letters - numbers - and other symbols ( _ - - - $ - and so on) an






7. 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.






8. Aka dynamic RAM.






9. An Intel standard for starting up a computer over the network - without relying on a disk-based operating system. Used to install a new operating system or run diagnostics software.






10. Aka Windows Internet Naming Service.






11. Aka interrupt request line.






12. Aka Small Outline RIMM.






13. Also called mirroring - this RAID array type provides fault tolerance because all the data is written identically to the two drives in the mirrored set.






14. Software created to perform malicious acts. Also called malicious software.






15. A file used during an unattended installation of Windows. It provides a script of responses to the questions Setup asks so the user does not have to answer them manually.






16. A specialized chip that controls DMA channels.






17. The use of a biometric for authentication.






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






19. The generic term for a pointing stick.






20. One or more chips in a computer's chipset that controls communications between the CPU and RAM on the motherboard.






21. Aka systray.






22. A 20- or 24- pin connector that supplies power from a PC's power supply to the motherboard.






23. DRAM that runs at the speed of the system bus (up to 100-133 MHz).






24. Memory that does not require power to keep stored data intact. Also called flash memory.






25. Aka routing information protocol.






26. A partition type on a basic disk that can have only one logical drive assigned to it encompassing the entire partition. This partition type is also the only type of partition on a basic disk that can be marked as active for booting up an operating sy






27. A video signaling method in which analog video information is transmitted as two or more discrete signals. Two general types of component video are RGB Video and S-Video.






28. A single-pin RCA phone jack for transferring digital audio from CD and DVD players to amplifiers and speakers.






29. A printed circuit card that you add to the motherboard to enhance functionality. Also called an expansion card. Video adapters and network interface cards (NICs) are examples of adapter cards.






30. In a CPU - special memory that resides within the CPU's core and is used to temporarily store instructions and data in order to increase the processing speed. Also called L1 cache.






31. In a low-profile PC case - a card that plugs into a motherboard to allow other cards to be inserted at a right angle to the riser card and parallel to the motherboard. Also - a single expansion card containing multiple functions - such as modem - sou






32. The chunks into which the TCP protocol packages data. In addition to the data - each datagram contains information - stored in a header - which is used by the TCP protocol on the receiving end to reassemble the chunks of data into the original messag






33. A printer that uses a light beam (laser) in the printing process.






34. A new level of an operating system with major changes to the core components.






35. Aka boot record.






36. A Windows Advanced Options menu choice used to send debugging information about the Windows startup over a serial cable to another computer running a special program called a debugger.






37. An area on the top left of the Windows XP Start menu containing shortcuts to Windows Update and programs for browsing the Internet and using e-mail.






38. A RAID array in which every time data is written to disk - a portion (block) is written to each disk in turn - creating a "stripe" of data across the member disks. RAID 0 uses the total disk space in the array for storage - without protecting the dat






39. In the FAT file system - the top-level directory in which the operating system stores information about files - including a reference to the FAT table so it knows where to find the file's contents on disk. The NTFS file system also has a root - or to






40. A storage type in Windows that uses the partition table in the master boot record (MBR) to define disk partitions.






41. A command-line utility - installed with the TCP/IP protocol suite - that is used to troubleshoot DNS problems by querying DNS name servers and displaying the results of the queries.






42. Aka double-data rate (DDR) SDRAM.






43. A physical area where a Wi-Fi network connects to the Internet.






44. Aka motherboard.






45. A KVM switch that uses software and special keyboard commands to switch among controlled computers. Also called anactive KVM switch.






46. An adapter card used to run a special diagnostic test on a computer as it is powering up. These tests usually go beyond those performed by the system BIOS-based POST.






47. A level of service offered by the telephone companies over a T-carrier circuit that provides full-duplex transmissions at 1.544 Mbps - carrying digital voice - data - or video signals.






48. A more advanced and more expensive alternative to a port replicator. In addition to the ports normally found on a port replicator - a docking station may include full-size expansion slots and drives.






49. A key on a laptop that is pressed along with the FN key to change display modes so the output will be only to the laptop's display - only to an external display - or simultaneously to both displays. The DISPLAY MODE key is normally a function key - s






50. The graphical Internet consisting of a vast array of documents located on millions of specialized servers worldwide. The documents are created using HTML and other specialized languages - and transferred from servers to client computers using HTTP an