A+ 220-1202 practice test: 15 free questions

What this A+ 220-1202 practice test measures

Core 2 is the help-desk half of A+: an operating system that misbehaves, a user who clicked something, and a procedure that has to be followed. This set gives equal weight to operating systems and security (28% each), then checks the troubleshooting habits and the operational rules that decide whether a fix survives an audit.

The fifteen questions are grouped the way 220-1202 is grouped, so the domains that carry the most marks get the most questions. Each question has one key and three distractors, and every option carries its own explanation: the key says why it is right, and each distractor says the specific thing that makes it wrong. That is the part most free question sets skip, and it is the part that turns a miss into a lesson.

Nothing here is drawn from the paid bank or from a real exam. The questions were written for this page, mapped to the published 220-1202 objectives, and checked against every question in the SecLern packs so the same idea is not tested twice in different words.

How to use a practice test without wasting it

A practice test is a measurement, and a measurement you have already seen is worth less the second time. Take this one once, cold, before you revise anything: no notes, no lookups, no pausing. Fifteen questions will not take long, and the score is only useful if it reflects what you actually know today.

Mark every question you were unsure about, even the ones you got right. A lucky guess and a confident answer look identical in the score, and they are not the same thing. At the end, the questions you flagged tell you more than the ones you missed.

Then leave it alone for a while. Come back in a week and the same fifteen questions will feel different, which is useful evidence about whether the revision landed.

• Take it cold, once. Sit the fifteen questions in one go with a clock running and nothing open beside them. The result is a baseline, not a verdict.
• Read every explanation, including the ones you got right. The three distractors teach the distinctions the exam tests: which control, which order, which owner. A right answer for the wrong reason will not survive a differently worded question.
• Write the miss down by objective. Not "I got four wrong": name the objective id and the idea behind the question. That list becomes the next study session instead of a vague feeling of weakness.
• Move the miss into another format. If the miss was about a control, find the lab that uses it. If it was about order, find a PBQ that grades sequence. Reading the same explanation twice is not revision.
• Measure again with fresh questions. Repeat on unseen questions, not this set. When two fresh sittings land comfortably above the pass margin, the exam date is a scheduling decision rather than a hope.

What 220-1202 actually asks, domain by domain

The percentages below are the published weights, not a study plan. They say where the marks are, which is where your calendar should go first: Operating systems carries 28% of 220-1202 and deserves the largest share of the remaining weeks.

The exam is 90 questions in 90 minutes, which is about 1 minutes per question on average, before you account for the 5 performance-based questions the simulation serves. That average is the whole timing argument: a question that takes three minutes has borrowed a minute from two others.

• Operating systems (28%). Operating systems is 28% and rewards tool knowledge: which console does the job, which command, which boot option. The distractors are usually real tools applied to the wrong problem, so name the symptom precisely before you choose.
• Security (28%). Security is 28% and covers the everyday controls a technician touches: encryption, MFA, certificate warnings and phishing resistance. The correct answer is usually the control that removes the human step rather than the one that warns about it.
• Software issues (23%). Software troubleshooting asks for a diagnostic sequence: establish what changed, isolate whether the fault follows the user or the machine, then fix the cause. Reinstalling is almost never the first answer.
• Operational procedures (21%). Operational procedures is 21% and it is where professionals separate themselves: change control, documentation, backup verification and safety. A question that offers 'do it now' and 'raise the change' is testing the process.

Reading your score honestly

The published pass mark is 700 on the 100 to 900 scale. Your raw score out of fifteen is not that number: the real exam is scaled, and 90 questions sample far more objectives than fifteen can. Use the raw score to find gaps; use a full simulation before you book.

A useful rule for a fifteen-question sample: anything under ten correct means at least one domain is unlearned, not unlucky. Twelve or more with two flagged guesses means the knowledge is there and the risk is pace and wording. The number that matters is not the percentage; it is which domains the misses cluster in.

The app's full simulation is the honest test: 90 questions on the real clock, with the same domain mix the objectives describe, and 5 performance-based questions in front of it. Free accounts get thirty study questions a day and three PBQs; the timed simulations are Pro. That is the line between practising and measuring.

The week after this test

Five steps, in order. Each one uses a different surface, because reading the same page twice is not revision.

• Step 1. Convert each miss into a 'when you see X, open Y' card. Core 2 is a tool-recall exam as much as a reasoning one.
• Step 2. Work the A+ Core 2 labs, especially the Windows desktop and help-desk ticket tasks; the lab grades the order you did things in.
• Step 3. Practise the two commands you missed at a real prompt: sfc, chkdsk, net user, gpupdate. Typing them once is worth reading them four times.
• Step 4. Take the A+ PBQ examples page and work the matching or config scenario with hints off, then read the item report.
• Step 5. Book a full simulation in the final fortnight; 700 on the 100 to 900 scale is the target, and two clean sittings is the booking test.

220-1202 practice test questions