What we got wrong.

The post taught a seven-step troubleshooting methodology and presented it as a scored A+ 220-1201 objective. CompTIA's published 220-1201 objectives list six steps, give the methodology no objective number, and say it "does not constitute a formal objective" on that exam. The seven-step version belongs to Network+ N10-009, where it is scored. The central premise of the post was wrong, not a detail in it.

The post teaches the six steps CompTIA publishes for A+, says plainly that the methodology carries no objective number on that exam and is still the workflow help desks hire for, and points to Network+ for the seven-step list.

Objective numbers were taken from the retired 220-1101 blueprint while the posts labeled themselves 220-1201. RAM was cited as objective 3.2, which is cables and connectors. A mobile-device post cited a 1.4 in a domain that stops at 1.3. Another cited a 5.7 in a domain that stops at 5.6. Readers mapping their study plan to those numbers were mapping it to an exam that had been retired.

Objective numbers across the A+ posts were rechecked one at a time against the current 220-1201 objectives. The references that pointed at retired numbering are gone.

The worked example priced a control at $40,000 a year against exposure it reduced by $30,000, then concluded the control paid for itself. Subtracting the numbers in the example gives a $10,000 a year loss. A student who followed the arithmetic got the opposite answer from the one the post gave them.

The example shows the subtraction and teaches the case it had been getting backwards, which is recognizing a control that costs more than the exposure it removes.

Seven incident-response phases were attributed to NIST, and NIST SP 800-61 Revision 2 was cited as current guidance. NIST withdrew Revision 2 on April 3, 2025. Revision 3 organizes incident response around the six Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 functions, and NIST has not published a seven-phase model. The seven steps in the post are CompTIA's own SY0-701 objective list.

The seven steps are attributed to CompTIA, whose list they are. The NIST reference points at the current revision and notes that Revision 2 was withdrawn.

The post read a TTL of 64 in ping output as a zero-hop reply from the local gateway. A TTL you observe cannot establish hop count on its own. The reading only means something once you know the value the sender started with, and different operating systems start at different values.

The post explains what a TTL reading supports, what it does not, and what you need to know about the sender before counting hops with it.

A successful ping was described as confirmation that the lower layers of the path were healthy. It shows ICMP reachability along the one path you tested, at the moment you tested it. It does not clear the layers underneath, and it does not speak for the traffic you came to fix.

The claim is scoped to what the tool returns and the moment it returns it.

The post counted five authentication factor categories. SY0-701 publishes four factors and treats the remaining items as attributes, which the exam handles as a separate group. Merging the two produced a count a student would have lost marks for.

The count is four factors, with attributes named as attributes and kept apart from them.

The N10-009 exam was listed at $369. That was correct when the post was written and stale after CompTIA moved the price to $399 on June 1, 2026. Anyone budgeting from our number was short by $30.

The price reads $399, and the cost posts carry a dated note saying when we last checked them against CompTIA's published pricing.

Sixteen of twenty-two posts printed June 20, 2026 in the byline and in their structured data, which contradicted the date the blog listing showed for the same post. Each post carried its own copy of the date, so the two could drift and did. Queued posts were also readable at their direct URL before their publish date, while the listing described them as still coming up.

Post pages read their date from the one record that also drives the blog listing and the sitemap, so there is no second copy to fall out of step. A queued post sends readers back to the blog until its date arrives.