Do Cert Exams Make You Nervous?

As I’m getting close to the completion of my training - and closer to test time - I’m starting to feel a little bit anxious. I’ve never been calm and relaxed when it came down to taking an exam, no matter how hard I studied and how confident I was about my knowledge and skills.

I always think that something can go wrong. Like my mind can go completely blank (it’s happened before), or I’ll get so nervous that I won’t be able to think and I’ll end up remembering the answers as soon as I walk out of the testing room.

I still have three more videos to see, and lots of studying to do, but I’m already dreading the inevitable exam. I wish I didn’t feel this way. After all, I am enjoying what I’m learning about and I like the self-paced learning mode I’m in. There’s just something about exams that makes me feel uneasy …

Aside from my premature test anxiety, things are moving along well. Video 17 was on the Windows Operating System and although much of the information was introduced in previous videos, this one was definitely more in-depth.

The first thing David Davis covered was the OS command line tools, giving examples of the most popular ones. I found this list of all MS-DOS commands along with full details on each at ComputerHope.com, which I thought I would share here.

And, by the way, if you’re ever looking for a computer related definition or an explanation of an A+ topic, before settling on Wikipedia, try ComputerHope.com. The quality and the amount of the information is great, and there’s also helpful forums.

Video 17 also went more into more details about the error messages, optimizing windows performance, preventative maintenance, and which utilities to use when you’re trying to troubleshoot a problem in the Windows OS.

The goal of today’s video was to understand the fundamentals of using, troubleshooting, and maintaining the Windows Operating System. The IT Technician exam objectives included:

3.0 Operating Systems - Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, XP Home and Media Center
3.1 Identify the fundamental principles of operating systems
3.2 Install, configure, optimize and upgrade OS - references to upgrading from Windows 95 and NT may be made
3.3 Identify tools, diagnostics procedures, and troubleshooting techniques for OS

That’s it for now. See you next week TST readers.

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