You have probably heard both stories. One friend or Reddit thread swears CompTIA A+ is entry-level and easy, a formality you knock out in a weekend. Another person calls it brutal, two exams that ate their month and humbled them on the second try. Both are describing the same certification. So which is it, and how worried should you be before you book a slot and pay the fee?
I want to give you the honest answer, because the mixed signals are not helping anyone. The truth sits in the middle, and where you land depends heavily on your background and, more than anything, on how you study. Below I will walk through what actually makes A+ hard, which of the two cores tends to trip people up, and the exact question styles where I watch candidates lose points. Not vibes. Patterns.
The honest short answer
A+ is moderately hard. It is not a weekend formality, and it is not a computer science degree either.
Here is the thing most breakdowns bury: A+ is broad, not deep. The difficulty is range plus deliberately tricky wording, not conceptual depth. You are not being asked to solve anything genuinely complex. You are being asked to recognize hundreds of small facts across a huge surface area, under a clock, phrased in ways designed to catch the person who half-remembers. That is a different kind of hard than most people brace for.
The certification is two separate exams. The current version 15 exams are Core 1 (220-1201) and Core 2 (220-1202), which succeeded the retired 220-1101 and 220-1102 in September 2025, and you need to pass both. Each is up to 90 questions in 90 minutes. Core 1 passes at 675 out of 900, Core 2 at 700 out of 900. Both include performance-based questions, the simulation-style items nearly everyone names as the scariest part.
For most people with steady, structured study over a couple of months, it is very passable. The failures I see are almost never about intelligence. They are about method.
What makes A+ hard: breadth, not depth
If you come from a subject where difficulty means depth, like advanced math or a hard programming problem, A+ will feel strange. Nothing on it is conceptually brutal. The hard part is how much ground it covers.
Core 1 alone spans mobile devices, networking, hardware, virtualization and cloud, and hardware and network troubleshooting. Core 2 covers operating systems, security, software troubleshooting, and operational procedures. Inside those domains sit an enormous number of small, specific, memorizable facts: port numbers, connector types, RAM standards, command-line syntax, the correct step in a troubleshooting sequence.
None of it is hard to understand. All of it is easy to forget. That is the real challenge. You are holding a wide, shallow lake of detail in your head and hoping the exam does not poke at the shallow spot you skipped.
Then there is the wording. CompTIA writes questions that reward precise reading. Two answers will look right; one is more right for the exact scenario described. The exam is testing whether you actually know it or merely recognize the words. This is where “I read the book” candidates get humbled.
Core 1 vs Core 2: which one is harder?
This is the question everyone wants a clean answer to, and the honest answer is: it depends on who you are.
Some people find Core 2 harder. Security and operating systems reward memorization and comfort with the command line, and if you have never touched Windows administration or a terminal, that content feels dense. It is worth knowing that on the current 220-1202, security is now roughly 28 percent of the exam, up from 25 percent, and operating systems roughly 31 percent, up from 27 percent, so those two heavier domains now make up well over half the test. Others find Core 1 harder, because ports and protocols, hardware minutiae, and networking specifics are a lot of raw recall with no story to hang it on.
I will not tell you one is universally harder, because the data does not say that. What I can tell you is that your background decides it. Come from a networking or hardware world and Core 1 is your friendlier exam. Come from a general computer-use or security-curious background and Core 2 will feel more natural. Here is the honest comparison:
| Core 1 (220-1201) | Core 2 (220-1202) | |
|---|---|---|
| Domains | Mobile devices, networking, hardware, virtualization and cloud, hardware/network troubleshooting | Operating systems, security, software troubleshooting, operational procedures |
| Passing score | 675 / 900 | 700 / 900 |
| What tends to trip people | Port and protocol recall, hardware minutiae, connector and RAM specifics | Command-line syntax, security concepts, exact OS steps and settings |
| Feels harder if you | Have little hands-on hardware or networking exposure | Have never used a terminal or done Windows administration |
Notice the passing score is slightly higher on Core 2. That is a small tell, not a verdict, but it lines up with what I see: the OS and security material, now the majority of the exam, leaves less room to guess your way through.
The performance-based questions
If any single element earns A+ its “hard” reputation, it is the performance-based questions, the PBQs.
These are not multiple choice. They drop you into a simulated environment or a scenario and ask you to do the thing: configure a setting, order the steps of a troubleshooting process, match items correctly, work through a mock interface. They usually appear at the very start of the exam, and that timing rattles people. You open the test expecting to warm up on easy multiple choice and instead you are staring at a simulation on minute one.
Two honest tips from watching how people handle them. First, the PBQs are weighted and time-hungry, so if one is eating your clock, flag it, move on, and come back. Candidates who freeze on a hard PBQ early lose the easy points waiting later in the exam. Second, PBQs punish pure memorization harder than any other item type. You cannot recognize your way through a task you have never actually performed. That is the whole point of them.
The exam is not trying to see if you have read about IT. It is trying to see if you can do the small task in front of you, which is exactly why memorizers stall on the PBQs and hands-on learners breeze through.
Where I see people actually lose points
Here is my real vantage point. I build the practice-question banks for A+, which means I am not guessing at difficulty from a forum thread. I get to see, across a lot of attempts, which domains and which question styles people miss most. From that data, a few patterns come up again and again.
The single most reliable point-loser is the troubleshooting-order question. CompTIA has a six-step methodology, and a question will describe a scenario, then ask what you should do next. The trap is that the “obvious” answer is usually the fix you would actually reach for, but the framework wants a different step first. For example: a user reports their computer will not connect to the network, you have already identified the problem, and the question asks for your next step. Most people pick “reboot the router” or “replace the cable” because that is what an instinctive tech does. The methodology wants “establish a theory of probable cause.” Or a scenario ends with the repair already done and asks what comes next, and people pick “document the findings” when the step before it is “verify full system functionality.” They know the material cold and still lose the point because they answered as a technician instead of as the framework.
Networking ports and protocols in Core 1 are the other consistent bleed. People learn the famous ones, like 80 and 443, and get quietly wrecked by the middle tier they skimmed, so a question offering 143, 993, and 995 as options separates the people who memorized the whole table from the people who memorized the headline.
In Core 2, the command-line and OS-settings questions are where recognition-only studying falls apart. Someone who has read what a command does, but never typed it, will often pick a plausible-looking wrong flag. Security questions bite in a different way: the concepts feel familiar, so people move fast and miss the precise-wording trap.
The through-line across all of it is not that the material is hard. It is that people study to recognize and the exam tests whether you can recall and apply. Which brings me to the most important reframe in this whole piece.
Why “hard” is mostly a study-method problem
If you take one thing from me, take this: A+ is mostly a study-method problem, because recognition is not recall.
Reading a study guide and nodding along builds recognition. You see the term, it looks familiar, you feel ready. Then the exam gives you a scenario with the answer hidden among near-identical options, under a timer, and recognition collapses. The people who struggle are almost never lazy. They studied hard in a mode that does not match how the exam asks.
The fix is not more hours. It is a different mode: practice questions, timed, with explanations, until you can produce the answer instead of merely knowing it when you see it. Do the PBQ-style tasks by actually doing them. That single shift, from passive review to active recall under a clock, is what turns A+ from “brutal” into “moderately hard and very passable.”
Where I am coming from
Quick honesty about my lens, because you should know it. I am a software engineer by training, out of NUST, and I have spent years building machine learning and product tools. I have not sat the A+ myself, and I am not going to pretend to hold a certification I do not have.
My connection to this world is twofold. Back in 2022 and 2023 I ran a series of cybersecurity webinars for a software vendor, GFI Software, sometimes solo and sometimes alongside their regional channel manager, on things like security directives, email security, network performance, and firewall-as-a-service. And now I build the practice-question banks that thousands of A+ candidates train on. That second part is why I can talk about difficulty in terms of where people actually lose points rather than my own exam-day memory.
So here is the honest way to find out how hard A+ is for you specifically, rather than for a stranger on Reddit: take a diagnostic. That is the PrepClubs A+ practice bank. It opens with a free 25-question diagnostic so you can find your weakest domain before you spend a rupee or a dollar, then gives you ten full-length practice forms to drill under real timing. Access is a one-time payment with 30-day access and a Pass Guarantee, not a subscription. These are original practice questions, not the real exam, and we are not affiliated with CompTIA. Free diagnostic first, because the honest measure of difficulty is your own weak spots, not somebody else’s story.
FAQ
Is CompTIA A+ hard to pass?
It is moderately hard. The challenge is breadth, performance-based questions, and precisely worded answer choices, not deep concepts. With structured, active-recall study over a couple of months, most people pass.
Which A+ core is harder, Core 1 or Core 2?
It depends on your background. Core 1 leans on hardware, networking, and port and protocol recall. Core 2 leans on operating systems, the command line, and security, and on the current 220-1202 those two domains alone are the majority of the exam. Core 2 also has a slightly higher passing score, which lines up with it feeling denser for many.
How many people fail CompTIA A+?
There is no reliable figure, because CompTIA does not publish official pass or fail rates. Any percentage you see quoted online is an unofficial estimate, and real results vary widely with preparation. Plenty of people pass on the first try with the right study method, and plenty retake a core. Treat the number as unknowable and focus on your own diagnostic instead.
Can I pass A+ in 2 months?
Yes, that is a realistic window for many people studying steadily, especially with active recall and practice questions rather than passive reading. Less IT background may mean you want a little more time, particularly for both exams.
Are the PBQs hard?
They are the part most people name as hardest, mainly because they require doing rather than recognizing, and they often appear first. They are very manageable if you practice the actual tasks and flag-and-return instead of freezing on one.
Is A+ hard with no IT experience?
It is harder without experience, but far from impossible. Complete beginners pass it regularly. Expect to spend more time building hands-on familiarity, especially with the command line and hardware, and lean heavily on practice questions.
The honest verdict: A+ is not the wall the horror stories describe, but it is not a freebie either, and the people who pass are the ones who study to recall, not just to recognize.