What are the CompTIA exam question types?

Post updated 02/16/2021.

On the first A+ Exam back in 1993, the CompTIA exam question types there were limited to multiple-choice type questions. As new revisions came along it wasn’t too long before exhibit-based questions such as identifying an item or later, target type questions. Then came the scenario-based questions, and finally the Performance-Based Questions aka PBQs.

These added question types changed the exam experience a little for some and a lot for others. Which group you fall into depends on your preparedness and your time management skills. Today if you are preparing for a CompTIA exam, you will potentially (depending on the question bank you get) be facing up to five different question types.

Two types of multiple-choice

1) Multiple choice – single answer
2) Multiple choice – multiple answers

Three question types are categorized as performance based:

3) Fill in the blank
4) Exhibit based questions (often an elaborate drag  and drop)

…and, still under performance-based, the most advanced and intricate type:

5) The interactive in-simulator question

CompTIA exam question types: Multiple choice – single answer

This one is pretty straight forward and you’ll recognize it from your school days. This is presented as one question with typically four answer alternatives of which one only is correct. Here is a tip on these, if you don’t know what the answer is but you want to guess, you can narrow down your chances from 25% to maybe 50%. Best practices in test writing say that of four alternatives, one should be the “non-sense” answers the one that will identify the ignorant. Another one should well of the mark but somewhat credible. Then the two remaining should both be credible and similar. This means that if you see two alternatives (out of four) that look similar the answer, more often than not, will be one of those. Here is an example:

Question: In a laser printer, which of the following items will charge the drum after it has been cleaned?

A) Transfer corona
B) Fuser
C) Developer roller
D) Primary corona

Here “B) Fuser” is the nonsense detractor as the fuser doesn’t even act on the drum. “C) Developer roller” is the next least likely as it doesn’t charge the drum. Then we are left with two “coronas”, now 1) here is a “pair” and, 2) both those act directly on the drum and its charge. If you have no idea what a possible answer may be here you still improved your likelihood of getting a correct answer by narrowing it down to these two alternatives. The correct answer is “D) Primary corona”. Considering that A) is the Transfer corona and that “transfer” here alludes to the transfer of the image to the drum if you had any inkling of that, then you would know to eliminate that choice for any generic action on the drum such as charging it. But whether you did or not deduce that you still doubled your chance of getting a correct answer by narrowing your choices down to the “pair”. Now, this is no way to prepare for an exam but this can be quite useful when you have marked several questions for later review and you are running out of time and have to guess on the last few. On all CompTIA exams the visual clue for a multiple choice – single answer is that the choices are selected by clicking a radio button (a circle).

Multiple choice – multiple answers

This one is of course very similar to the prior one but has a couple of twists to it. Best test writing practices when asking a candidate to “choose all that apply” is to offer five alternatives if two are correct and six alternatives if three are correct. Being multiple answers adds a level of complexity such that other than actual knowledge there are no great shrewd strategies specific to the multiple-choice – multiple answer type questions. The best you can do is 1) know your topic, and 2) practice these a lot. On all CompTIA exams the visual clue for a multiple choice – multiple answers is that the choices are selected by clicking a check box (a square).

Fill in the blank

The fill-in-the-blank items present the candidates with a question that requires a word, an acronym or a short phrase to answer. The candidates uses the response field into which they enter their response. In the example below the candidate would enter “steady” (without the quotation marks…). Some answers are case sensitive some are not. The way that is best handled is to treat the entry as if you were typing it into any other text. You should no more capitalize “steady” in the answer field than you would capitalize a word in the middle of any other sentence.

Exhibit based questions

There are several variants of the exhibit based question. One is to just show you an item and ask you to fill in or select and answer based on a multiple choice. Another type will require you to drag and drop items into a list and re-order them. Yet others are of the interactive “drag and drop” type where you are asked to move an on-screen check mark to categorize or identify an item as shown below. There, candidates must identify a DVI-I of connector by dragging the check mark to its representation (in case you wondered, the correct one is the top left connector).

Simulator based questions

In the CompTIA – VUE simulator it is really important that the candidate sticks to the tasks at hand in the order required. These are “mini-simulations” that will only handle what is required in the questions. “Clicking around just to see” is not going to help one bit. The GUI in the example below (taken from CertBlaster) with the black-and-white cmd.exe window and the question that the candidates have been asked to answer gives you a really good idea of what to expect.

As you can see the question asks you to navigate the folder structure and to save a file to the root of the C: drive. This is quite representative of the kinds and level of tasks you will be asked to perform in these simulators at the actual exam. Other examples will involve navigation in the Windows menus to perform specific task and or report back some information about configuration, the system etc.

These exercises can easily become time-consuming “black holes”. Candidates must watch and manage time very carefully while running these simulations. Don’t over-invest yourself to get it right “at all cost” as that cost may be you flunking the exam because you ran out of time to answer easier and shorter multiple-choice questions… Don’t forget to click Submit/Done when you feel you got it right. Don’t be too unsettled about the absence of feedback when you do click Submit/Done, the software won’t respond, no confirmation like “saved”, “got it” or anything at all…

The CompTIA exam question types are varied today and practicing each type thoroughly will save you time at the exam and reduce anxiety enabling you to better focus on the question content.

Below are screenshots of Performance Based Questions from various CertBlaster CompTIA exams.

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