I've just recently completed the A+ course. No it's not very hard, but as was mentioned, easy enough to make stupid mistakes on the questions about the differences between the installations of 95, 98, NT etc. It is quite "nit-picky" in this respect, but if you've been around computers for any time at all, you should have no problems.

It is split into two exams, Core Hardware Fundamentals and Operating System Fundamentals. They have recently changed from using the 2hr 70 question "normal" test to using the 20-30 question Adaptive Test exclusively. The benifit of this is that you can be out of it in 10mins (you must complete the test in 30mins) but the disadvantage is that you can't review (go go back to) previous questions as it uses your answer to the last question as a basis for choosing the next question.

As far as I know it is about AU$ 200 or so each exam (if you fail you pay again ofcourse). [This is from memory as I can't remember the exact amount]

By the way, I sat through the whole course and read all four books and didn't have a problem with either exam. If you would like me to answer further questions, don't hesitate to post them in this thread (so everybody gets the benefit of the conversation)

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

q2_stefan