A user brings you a laptop that will not join the office wireless. You check the adapter, then the band it is trying to associate on, then whether the access point handed out an address at all, then whether the file share it needs is even reachable.
That single ticket has just touched four of the five Core 1 domains. It is a fair picture of what CompTIA A+ exam 220-1201 is actually testing, and it explains the exam’s most surprising number: hardware and network troubleshooting carries 28 percent of the paper, more than hardware itself at 25 and more than networking at 23. Core 1 is 90 questions in 90 minutes, scored on a 900 point scale with 675 to pass, and the largest single slice of it asks you to fix something rather than to name it.
How Are the Five Core 1 Domains Weighted?
Hardware and network troubleshooting takes 28 percent, hardware 25, networking 23, mobile devices 13 and virtualization and cloud computing 11. The three largest domains account for 76 percent of the paper between them, and the largest of the three is the one that tests diagnosis rather than knowledge.
| Domain | Weight | What it is really about |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware and Network Troubleshooting | 28% | Diagnosing faults in components, displays, storage, printers and network connectivity |
| Hardware | 25% | Installing RAM, processors and storage, cables and connectors, peripherals, motherboards and power |
| Networking | 23% | Ports and protocols, wireless standards and bands, networked host services, addressing and small-office setups |
| Mobile Devices | 13% | Component replacement, accessories and connectivity, and configuring mobile network and application support |
| Virtualization and Cloud Computing | 11% | Cloud service and deployment concepts, and client-side virtualization |
Read the top two together and the design becomes clear. Hardware at 25 percent teaches you what the parts are; troubleshooting at 28 percent asks what you do when one of them misbehaves. CompTIA has decided the second is worth marginally more, which is unusual and is a genuine signal about the job the credential describes.
The smallest domain is also worth a moment. Virtualization and cloud at 11 percent is roughly one question in nine, which is not nothing on a paper where the pass mark sits at 675 of 900. It is small enough to study last and large enough that skipping it is a bad trade. The overview on the money site’s Core 1 exam page sets the weights alongside the specifications if you want them on one screen.
What Are the 220-1201 Exam Facts?
220-1201 is a maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes, scored on a 900 point scale with 675 required to pass, priced at 274 US dollars and scheduled through Pearson VUE. CompTIA recommends 12 months of hands-on experience in an IT support specialist role and offers the exam in English, German and Japanese.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Exam name | CompTIA A+ Core 1 |
| Exam code | 220-1201 |
| Questions | Maximum of 90 |
| Question types | Multiple choice single and multiple response, drag and drop, performance-based |
| Duration | 90 minutes |
| Passing score | 675 on a scale of 900 |
| Price | $274 USD |
| Delivery | Pearson VUE |
| Recommended experience | 12 months in an IT support specialist role |
| Languages | English, German, Japanese |
| Series | V15, launched 25 March 2025 |
| Published domains | 5, weighted, totalling 100% |
All of those figures come straight from CompTIA’s own A+ certification page, which publishes the series code, the question types, the length, the passing score and the recommended experience in a single block. Two details in that table change how you should pace yourself. “Maximum of 90” is not the same as 90: the count can be lower, so arithmetic about how many you can afford to miss is unreliable. And the 675 of 900 is a scaled score rather than a percentage, so it does not convert to a straightforward number of correct answers.
Performance-based items eat the clock
The question types include drag and drop and performance-based items alongside conventional multiple choice. Performance-based questions put you in a simulated environment and ask you to complete a task, and they take several times longer than a recall question. With 90 minutes for up to 90 items, leaving those until the end and working the multiple choice quickly first is a defensible strategy, and it is one worth deciding on before you sit down rather than during.
Why Is Troubleshooting the Biggest Domain?
Because it is the job. Hardware and network troubleshooting carries 28 percent, the largest slice of Core 1, and it is the only domain that asks what you do rather than what you know. Every other domain supplies the knowledge this one applies under pressure.
That framing is worth taking literally when you study. Learning that a motherboard has a CMOS battery is hardware knowledge. Recognising, from a machine that loses its clock and forgets boot order, that the CMOS battery is the likely cause is troubleshooting, and only the second earns marks in the largest domain.
The domain spans components, displays, storage, printers and network connectivity, which means it draws on all four of the other domains rather than sitting beside them. A question about a laptop that will not associate with an access point is a troubleshooting question that requires the networking domain’s content to answer. That overlap is the reason the article opened with a single support ticket: real tickets do not respect domain boundaries and neither does this section of the exam.
The practical consequence is that troubleshooting cannot be studied first. It has to be studied last and studied as practice, by working faults rather than by reading about them.
How Deep Does Core 1 Go on Networking?
Deeper than most entry-level candidates expect for 23 percent. The objectives enumerate thirteen ports by number and protocol, from FTP on 20 and 21 through to RDP on 3389, and require you to compare TCP with UDP, explain wireless frequencies, channels and widths, summarise the services networked hosts provide, and configure a small office network.
The port list is pure recall and it is the single most efficient thing to memorise on the whole paper. Thirteen numbers, each attached to one protocol, and they appear in both the networking domain and, indirectly, in troubleshooting questions about services that are not reachable. The authoritative source is the IANA port registry, though for the exam the thirteen named in the objectives are the only ones that matter.
Wireless is more than the 802.11 letters
The wireless objective names frequencies at 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz, then channels, channel selection, regulations, widths, bands and the 802.11 standards themselves, plus Bluetooth, NFC and RFID. Six gigahertz is the newer material and the part older study guides handle least well. The Wi-Fi certification programmes maintained by the industry body are the clearest place to see which generation introduced what.
The rest of the domain is small-office practical: DNS record types including the three spam-management records, DHCP leases, reservations, scope and exclusions, VLANs, VPNs and the common hardware devices. It reads like a list until you notice that almost every item is something that breaks and generates a ticket, which is how the troubleshooting domain will ask about it.
What Does the Hardware Domain Actually Include?
Twenty-five percent covering component installation, cables and connectors, peripheral devices, motherboards and power. In practice that means RAM, processors and storage devices, HDMI, Ethernet and USB cabling, printers and scanners, and configuring motherboards, power supplies and cooling.
Printers deserve a specific mention because they are the item candidates most often under-prepare. They appear in the hardware domain as devices to install and maintain, and again in the troubleshooting domain as a rich source of faults, so the return on learning them properly is doubled.
Cables and connectors are the other high-yield area, and for an unglamorous reason: they are visual. Questions can show you a connector and ask what it is, which is the easiest kind of mark to secure and the easiest to lose if you have only ever read the names. Handling the connectors, or at least studying photographs of them, converts a recall problem into a recognition one.
Power and cooling round the domain out. Power supply sizing, connector types and cooling solutions are all examinable, and they are also the components most likely to appear in a troubleshooting scenario about a machine that shuts down under load.
Is the Mobile Devices Domain Worth Serious Study?
Thirteen percent is roughly twelve questions on a 90 item paper, so yes. The domain covers monitoring mobile hardware and replacing it, accessories and connectivity options, and configuring basic mobile network connectivity and application support.
The first objective is more hands-on than its size suggests. It names batteries, keyboards, RAM, drives, wireless cards, physical privacy and security components including biometrics and near-field scanners, the Wi-Fi antenna connector and its placement, cameras and microphones. That is a laptop teardown described as a syllabus.
The connectivity objective is where mobile device management appears, covering device configurations for corporate and bring-your-own devices, policy enforcement and corporate applications. Mobile device management is the only genuinely enterprise topic in an otherwise device-level domain, and it is the one most likely to be unfamiliar to a candidate whose experience is home or small-office support.
Synchronisation closes the domain: recognising data caps, and syncing calendar, contacts, business applications, mail and cloud storage. It is short, it is practical, and it is the kind of material that is quick to learn and easy to forget, so it belongs late in a revision schedule rather than early.
What Does an Entry-Level Exam Ask About Virtualization and Cloud?
Concepts rather than administration. At 11 percent this is the smallest Core 1 domain, and it splits into cloud computing concepts, meaning the service and deployment models and their characteristics, and client-side virtualization, meaning the purpose of virtual machines and what a workstation needs to run them.
Nobody is asking you to build a cloud environment. The examinable knowledge is what distinguishes the service models from each other, what a private deployment means against a public one, and why an organisation would choose one, plus the resource and security requirements a machine has to meet before it can host a virtual machine usefully.
Because it is conceptual, this is the one domain that genuinely can be learned from reading. That makes it the cheapest 11 percent on the paper, and the obvious place to spend a couple of evenings late in preparation once the hands-on domains have had their time. Our Core 1 preparation walkthrough sets out a study order that treats it that way.
How Does Core 1 Divide From Core 2?
Core 1 is hardware and networking. Core 2 is operating systems and security. A+ requires both, CompTIA states they may be taken in either order, and neither is a prerequisite for the other.
The split is cleaner than it sounds and it has a practical consequence for scheduling. Someone whose background is physical support, building machines and running cable, will find Core 1 the easier of the two and should sit it first to bank a pass. Someone whose background is helpdesk software support will find Core 2 easier and should reverse the order.
There is no benefit in sitting them close together beyond your own momentum, and no penalty for a gap, provided both are passed while the series is current. Our overview of the two A+ exams covers how the pair fits together as a single credential.
Should You Sit the V15 Series Now?
Yes, with one eye on the calendar. 220-1201 is the V15 series, launched on 25 March 2025, and CompTIA states its certifications usually retire around three years after launch, which puts an estimated retirement in 2028. That is a comfortable window rather than a deadline.
The practical risk is not the exam retiring under you. It is preparing from material written for the previous series. The 220-1101 objectives remain widely available and are close enough to the current ones to feel right while missing the newer content, and the 6 GHz wireless material is the clearest example of what falls through that gap.
Check the series label on anything you study from. If a resource does not say V15 or 220-1201 somewhere, assume it was written for the previous series until proven otherwise.
One more reason to sit it while the series is current: CompTIA lists A+ as approved under the DoD 8140 framework for three work roles, technical support specialist, system administrator and cyber defense infrastructure support specialist. That approval attaches to the credential rather than to a particular exam version, but it is the clearest published evidence that the certification carries formal weight beyond the job listings CompTIA cites.
How Should You Prepare for the Core 1 Exam?
Build the knowledge domains first and the diagnosis domain last, because troubleshooting draws on all of them. Six steps, ordered so that each one has what it needs from the step before.
- Memorise the thirteen ports and their protocols early, because they are pure recall, they take one evening, and they resurface in troubleshooting questions about unreachable services.
- Work through the hardware domain with components in your hands where possible, since cables, connectors and printers are recognition questions and photographs are a poor substitute for having held the thing.
- Learn the wireless material including the 6 GHz band explicitly, as it is the newest content on the paper and the part older study resources handle least well.
- Cover the mobile devices domain as a laptop teardown plus mobile device management, treating the enterprise policy material as the unfamiliar half if your experience is home or small-office support.
- Read the virtualization and cloud domain last among the knowledge domains, because at 11 percent it is the smallest and the only one that can genuinely be learned from reading.
- Spend the final stretch on troubleshooting as practice rather than reading, working faults end to end, because it is 28 percent of the paper and it applies everything the other four domains taught you.
Then rehearse the exam’s own shape. Decide in advance how you will handle performance-based items, since they take several times longer than a recall question and the paper allows a minute per item on average. Working quickly through the multiple choice first and returning to the simulations is the approach most candidates settle on, and settling on it beforehand is worth more than the minutes it saves.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many questions are on the CompTIA A+ Core 1 exam?
A maximum of 90 in 90 minutes. CompTIA words it as a maximum rather than a fixed count, so the number can be lower and arithmetic about how many you can afford to miss is unreliable.
What is the passing score for 220-1201?
675 on a scale of 900. It is a scaled score rather than a percentage, so it does not convert directly into a number of correct answers.
Which Core 1 domain carries the most weight?
Hardware and network troubleshooting at 28 percent, ahead of hardware at 25 and networking at 23. It is also the only domain that tests diagnosis rather than knowledge.
How much does the A+ Core 1 exam cost?
274 US dollars for the exam, scheduled through Pearson VUE. A+ requires both Core 1 and Core 2, so the full credential costs two exam fees.
What experience does CompTIA recommend before Core 1?
Twelve months of hands-on work in an IT support specialist role. It is a recommendation rather than a requirement, and there are no formal prerequisites.
Does 220-1201 have performance-based questions?
Yes. The question types are multiple choice with single and multiple response, drag and drop, and performance-based items that put you in a simulated environment and ask you to complete a task.
Can I take Core 2 before Core 1?
Yes. CompTIA states the two exams may be taken in either order and neither is a prerequisite for the other. Sitting the one closer to your existing experience first is a reasonable strategy.
When does the 220-1201 series retire?
An estimated 2028. CompTIA states its certifications usually retire about three years after launch, and this series launched on 25 March 2025.
What languages is the A+ Core 1 exam available in?
English, German and Japanese, according to CompTIA’s own exam details for the V15 series.
Is A+ recognised by the US Department of Defense?
CompTIA lists A+ as approved under the DoD 8140 framework for three work roles: technical support specialist, system administrator, and cyber defense infrastructure support specialist.
Conclusion
The number that should shape your preparation is 28. Troubleshooting is the largest domain on Core 1, larger than hardware and larger than networking, and it is the only one that cannot be studied by reading.
So build the other four first and finish with faults. Memorise the thirteen ports early because they are cheap marks that resurface everywhere, handle real cables and connectors rather than looking at pictures of them, learn the 6 GHz material explicitly because older resources skip it, and leave virtualization and cloud until late since it is the smallest domain and the only genuinely conceptual one. Then work faults end to end until diagnosis is a habit rather than a recall exercise, and decide before exam day how you will pace the performance-based items. Ninety minutes for up to ninety questions is enough time, but only if the simulations are not a surprise.
