We’re excited to announce an update to the Skills USA ITS National Contest. Starting this year, we’ll be administering an alternate CompTIA examination product as the written component of the ITS contest. These official CompTIA exams are based on content that maps to the CompTIA A+ Core 1 and Core 2 certification exams. This means we will not offer a CompTIA A+ certification exam on the contest floor as we have done in years past.
Why the change? Over the last several years we found that a majority our contestants had already earned the CompTIA A+ certification prior to arriving at the national contest. Those contestants were required to receive special waivers to take the certification exams again. This waiver process is no longer allowed per testing regulations.
This change does not reduce the benefits for our competitors at all. As a show of their commitment to SkillsUSA, CompTIA will provide a coupon that can be redeemed on the CompTIA Store for vouchers. This will allow contestants who don’t have an CompTIA A+ certification to take the current version of the CompTIA A+ exam free of charge within a limited time window after the contest. This ensures that everyone has a fair chance to showcase their skills and earn industry-recognized certifications.
PREP
The written portion of the exam will be drawn from the published objectives of the CompTIA A+ Core 1 and Core 2 exams. Candidates should prepare by reviewing the objective documents and ensuring that they have mastered the listed items in the published objectives.
EXAM
The exams delivered at Nationals will be drawn from the CompTIA A+ objectives and from the learning materials that are published by CompTIA. Candidates will only see questions that are based on the standards in the published CompTIA A+ exam objectives.