Core 1 against Core 2: what actually differs

Core 1 and Core 2 are often described as "the two A+ exams" as if they were halves of the same paper split for convenience. They are not. They test different material, they fail people for different reasons, and they do not even pass at the same score.

What is identical

Start with the parts that genuinely match, because they are the parts people assume differ. Both are V15. Both launched on 25 March 2025. Both run to a maximum of 90 questions. Both allow 90 minutes. Both use the same mix of question types: multiple choice in single and multiple response form, drag-and-drop, and performance-based items. Both list the same recommended experience — 12 months hands-on in an IT support specialist job role — and the same three languages, English, German and Japanese. Both are listed against the same DoD 8140 work roles.

If you have prepared for the format of one, you have prepared for the format of the other.

What is not

The pass mark

Core 1 passes at 675. Core 2 passes at 700. Both on a scale of 900. This is the single most surprising fact about A+ and there is no obvious reason for it on CompTIA's pages — the marks are simply set where they are set.

Since scaled scores are not percentages and CompTIA publishes no conversion, you cannot translate the 25-point gap into questions. What you can take from it is practical: a Core 1 performance that would have passed does not automatically pass Core 2. What a scaled score means goes into how little the number tells you.

The subject matter

Core 1 is physical. Hardware and network troubleshooting is 28% of it, hardware 25%, networking 23%, mobile devices 13% and virtualization and cloud computing 11%. Read that as a single sentence: half the exam is hardware plus what goes wrong with it.

Core 2 is procedural and software-led. Operating systems is 28%, security 28%, software troubleshooting 23% and operational procedures 21%. There are four domains rather than five and none of them is small — the flattest distribution of the two, which means there is nowhere to hide.

How people fail each one

The failure modes follow from the weightings. Core 1 punishes candidates who learned hardware from diagrams: over half the exam concerns components and faults, and recognising a connector on a page is a different skill from knowing what to do when a machine will not post.

Core 2 punishes candidates who found operational procedures boring. Documentation, change management, safety and backup and recovery are 21% of the exam — more than a fifth of it, and the most learnable fifth, which makes skipping it the least defensible decision in A+ preparation. Security is another 28%, and it is security at the level of access control, encryption and malware handling rather than anything specialist.

The overlap people miss

Describing the two exams as hardware and software is a useful shorthand and it obscures a real overlap. Networking appears on both: 23% of Core 1 is networking outright, and a substantial part of Core 2's 28% security domain is about securing networks — wireless security protocols, access control, the consequences of an unsecured connection. Somebody who treats networking as a Core 1 topic and moves on meets it again in the second exam wearing a different hat.

Troubleshooting overlaps too, in method rather than in subject. Core 1 tests fault finding on hardware and connectivity, Core 2 on operating systems and applications, but the structured approach behind both is the same one — establish the symptom, form a theory, test it, fix, verify, document. Learning that method properly for the first exam is a quarter of the preparation for the second.

The rule that binds them: same version, no mixing

CompTIA's exam details for each half carry the same line: the Core 1 and Core 2 exams "must be taken from the same version, no mixing allowed". V15 means 220-1201 and 220-1202. A pass on one version does not combine with a pass on another to produce a certification.

The practical rule: once you pass one half, book the other. Whatever your reason for the gap, it is not worth the exam fee you already paid.

Two exams, two sittings, two chances to be unlucky

A consequence of the split that rarely gets mentioned: A+ doubles your exposure to everything that can go wrong on an exam day. Two bookings, two journeys or two proctored sessions at home, two sets of identification checks, two chances for a network problem or a noisy room. Candidates who sit a single-exam certification experience that risk once.

It also doubles the administrative rules you are agreeing to. CompTIA's candidate agreement requires you to register using an address in the country where you will be testing and to test in that same country, and says it uses technical and operational measures to determine your location during the exam. Someone who moves between the two sittings needs to take that seriously rather than assume the first booking's details still apply.

Which to sit first

CompTIA's A+ page describes two exams "which you can take in any order", so this is genuinely your choice. Two arguments pull in opposite directions.

• Core 1 first is the common order, because Core 2 leans on vocabulary and concepts Core 1 introduces — networking terms reappear inside Core 2's security domain, and hardware understanding underpins parts of troubleshooting.
• Core 2 first suits someone already working in a software-led support role, who will find its operating systems and procedures material familiar and can use the sitting to learn how A+ asks questions before facing the harder half.

There is no wrong answer and no scoring advantage either way. The only real constraint is the version rule above.

Booking them: what differs in practice

Two exams means two purchases, and CompTIA's own cost article states it directly: you need two vouchers to sit two exams to certify. Anyone budgeting from a single figure found elsewhere is budgeting for half the certification. This site prints no figure at all, for reasons set out in the search for an A+ price.

Otherwise the logistics are identical. Same length, same formats, same delivery, same rules — CompTIA's retake policy applies per exam, so failing Core 1 has no effect on anything to do with Core 2. The certification clock is worth reading carefully rather than assuming: CompTIA's renewal page dates expiry three years from the date you earn the certification, and A+ is earned by passing both halves. On that reading a gap between the two sittings does not eat into the three years — but it is a reading of the rule, not a sentence CompTIA writes about A+ specifically.

Preparing for both without preparing twice

Around a third of the work is shared even though the domains are not. Troubleshooting method — identify, theorise, test, plan, verify, document — runs through Core 1's hardware faults and Core 2's software faults alike. Networking concepts from Core 1 reappear inside Core 2's security material. Documentation habits sit in Core 2's operational procedures and quietly improve the troubleshooting answers in Core 1.

So study them in sequence but not in isolation. The study route sets out an order that carries the shared material across, and the A+ page has both exams' details side by side.