CompTIA A+ Certification Exam: Core 1 (220-1201)

CompTIA retired the old 220-1101 Core 1 exam in September 2025 and replaced it with 220-1201, part of the V15 revision. If your study materials still reference 220-1101, they're testing the wrong version. Troubleshooting now carries more weight than any other domain on Core 1, at 28 percent of the exam, which tells you a lot about what CompTIA actually wants entry-level techs to be able to do: not just recognize hardware, but diagnose what's wrong with it under time pressure.

What CompTIA A+ 220-1201 Exam Actually Tests

Core 1 is built around five domains, and the split between them is not even close to equal:

• Hardware and Network Troubleshooting — 28%. The single largest domain. This covers diagnosing motherboard, RAM, CPU, and power issues, drive and RAID problems, display and video faults, mobile device symptoms, network connectivity failures, and printer malfunctions.

• Hardware — 25%. Identifying, installing, and configuring physical components: motherboards, storage devices, cabling, peripherals, and power supplies.

• Networking — 23%. Network types and topologies, TCP/IP addressing, wireless standards and encryption, and setting up small office/home office (SOHO) equipment.

• Mobile Devices — 13%. Laptop hardware, smartphones and tablets, wearables, and mobile app support.

• Virtualization and Cloud Computing — 11%. Cloud service models, client-side virtualization, and the basics of supporting virtualized environments.

One detail worth flagging: CompTIA's own objectives document mentions the six-step troubleshooting methodology as a recommended best practice, then explicitly says it won't appear as a standalone testable objective. That doesn't mean troubleshooting logic is absent from the exam. It means you'll be tested on applying it inside scenario questions, not reciting its steps back.

Who Typically Takes CompTIA A+ 220-1201 Exam

Most Core 1 candidates fall into a few groups: people transitioning into IT from an unrelated field who need a recognized entry point, help desk or desktop support staff whose employer requires the certification, and students in community college or bootcamp IT programs using A+ as their first industry credential. It's rarely someone's only certification goal. Core 1 is one half of a two-exam requirement, and most people are already thinking about Core 2 (220-1202, which covers operating systems and security) before they've scheduled Core 1.

CompTIA A+ 220-1201 Exam Format and What Trips People Up

The official CompTIA A+ 220-1201 exam runs up to 90 questions in 90 minutes, mixing multiple-choice (single and multiple response), drag-and-drop, and performance-based questions (PBQs). You need a scaled score of 675 out of 900 to pass.

The PBQs are where most candidates lose time they didn't budget for. These simulate a task, like configuring a network setting or identifying failed components in a rendered diagram, and they don't give partial credit clarity the way a multiple-choice question does. A common mistake is spending eight or ten minutes on a single PBQ early in the exam and then rushing the last 20 questions. CompTIA doesn't tell you how many PBQs you'll get or where they'll land, so pacing has to be a strategy you bring in, not one the exam hands you.

How to Use This Practice Test Effectively

Don't treat this as a single pass-fail dry run. Work through it once untimed, section by section, and log which domain you're weakest in. Given that Troubleshooting, Hardware, and Networking together make up 76 percent of the exam, a weak spot in any one of those three domains matters more than a weak spot in Virtualization and Cloud. Once you've identified the gap, go back to that domain specifically rather than repeating the full test again immediately. Then take a second, timed pass to simulate the actual 90-minute pressure, paying attention to how long you're spending on scenario-heavy questions versus straightforward recall ones.

Common Mistakes Candidates Make on CompTIA A+ 220-1201 Exam

A lot of 220-1201 failures aren't knowledge failures, they're version failures: candidates study from 220-1101 materials because that's what's still floating around free on older sites, and they walk in under-prepared on virtualization and cloud content that V15 expanded. Another recurring mistake is underestimating the Mobile Devices domain because it's only 13 percent. It's small, but it's also one of the more literal, memorization-heavy sections, so missing points there because you didn't bother studying it is an avoidable loss. Candidates also tend to over-focus on naming hardware components and under-practice the troubleshooting logic questions that ask you to pick the next diagnostic step, which is a different skill than identification.

Study Tips Specific to CompTIA A+ 220-1201 Exam

Since Troubleshooting is both the largest domain and the one most tested through scenarios rather than flashcard-style recall, build your study time around working through symptom-to-cause chains rather than memorizing component names in isolation. When you study Hardware, pair every component with a failure symptom associated with it. It's a more efficient way to prep for the 28 percent domain than studying Hardware and Troubleshooting as if they were unrelated. For Networking, focus on TCP/IP addressing scenarios and SOHO configuration tasks specifically, since that's the part of the domain most likely to show up as a PBQ rather than a straightforward multiple-choice question. Confirm any third-party study guide or dump explicitly references 220-1201, not 1101, before you rely on it.

Next Step

Start with the domain that carries the most weight. If you haven't taken a practice test on the 220-1201 objectives yet, begin with the Troubleshooting and Hardware questions below, since together they're more than half the exam, then work through Networking, Mobile Devices, and Virtualization and Cloud Computing in that order.Practice with exam-style questions using our Cisco DCIT online practice test.