How long is the A plus exam valid?
Updated: 02/18-2020
For the CompTIA “Big Three” exam retirement dates, click here.
When CompTIA (if you are curious about the acronym see note below) released the A+ certification was back in 1993 it was a certification that was good for life. It never expired! As a matter of fact if you took the exam then and all the way till December 31, 2010 you are still certified today. However, everybody else has to re-establish the A+ credential every three years. I say re-establish because you don’t necessarily have to actually retake the entire exam. This is good because those test vouchers are not cheap! So what are the re-certification choices?
1) You can prove continuing education
2) You can pass a recertification exam
To prove continuing education you have to earn Continuing Education Credits (CEU). The CEUs required for renewing each certification are as follows:
- A) A+ Certification: 20 CEUs
- B) Network+ Certification: 30 CEUs
- C) Security+ Certification: 50 CEUs
To earn CEUs you either take classes that are relevant to the certification (check with CompTIA first). Another option is to get involved in professionally relevant activities related to the topic such as getting articles published, writing white papers, and you can also attend workshops and/or conferences. Teaching or lecturing is another avenue that can help you pile up those CEUs. Finally, there are other certifications that can earn you additional CEUs.
As you can see above from the number of CEUs required for each exam, CompTIA has established a clear hierarchy between these certification tracks. From highest to lowest, you are looking at: 1) Security+, 2) Network+ and, 3) A+ certification. If you have more than one certification and you recertify then that’s going to matter a lot to you. For holders of two or more of the certifications, recertifying at the highest level renews the lower level certifications as well. As an example say you are holding A+, Network+, and Security+, renewing the Security+ certification automatically recertifies you for your A+ and Network+ as well. That is a good deal because remember the cost of those testing vouchers?
Because there are now two types/levels of certification: lifetime vs continuing education, CompTIA appends “CE” (you guessed it: That for continuing education) to the end of the new certificate. As an example if you have earned the A+ certification in 2009 your certificate will say that you hold the CompTIA A+ certification. If you took your exam from 2011 and on then the certificate will say CompTIA A+ CE.
NOTE: History of the CompTIA acronym
The A+ Certification was launched by CompTIA. CompTIA stands for the Computing Technology Industry Association. CompTIA is a bit of a contrived acronym and there is a reason for that. Before being the Computing Technology Industry Association it was the Association of Better Computer Dealers aka ABCD which is a semi-cool acronym. However, the association was by then also representing major manufacturers, IBM, HP, and Microsoft, etc. and so wanted a new name that better reflected the diverse nature of its new member base. That’s when the Computing Technology Industry Association came about as the new name and the acronym was declared to be CTIA which seemed to make sense except that it hit a snag: CTIA was taken. It was taken by the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (ironically today they renamed themselves to “The Wireless Association” which not consistent with the acronym that till this day remains as is). The CTIA was and is a trade organization and a Washington lobbyist. You don’t mess with lobbyists and so in 1993 the Computing Technology Industry Association became CompTIA.
As of the writing of this post the current exams are:
A+ 220-1001 (Core 1)
A+ 220-1002 (Core 2)
The next release of the A+ exams will be on or about January 2022 and the exam numbers will be: A+ Exam 220-2001 & A+Exam 220-2002
One way (we would argue the best way but we are not all that unbiased) to get ready for these exams is the use the CertBlaster A+ Practice Test.
