Seeing how I measure up to A+ Certification

I'm looking into A+ Certification. I'm already familiar with assembling/disassembling PCs, installing an OS, and troubleshooting, so I might as well put another bulletpoint on the resume. There's just one problem: The practice tests I've found have quite a wide range of topics, with a few that are oddly specific.

So far, I have failed every practice test I've taken. Why? I didn't know the following:

• Minimum and Recommended System Requirements of Windows 2000, XP, Vista Basic, and Vista Home Premium/Business/Ultimate.
• What "1x" speed is for CD, DVD, and BluRay.
• How long SATA and PATA cables can be. (1mr and 45cm, respectively)
• The history of ATA, revisions, and when features were added as well as what they do.
• The most common form factors of usb flash drives (ex: 1.8in, 2.5in)
• The form factors of CompactFlash devices ("Type I (3.3 mm) and Type II (5.0 mm)")
• Region codes of BluRay (A, B, and C, not 0-8)
• That CPUID is a code that determines the capabilities of the CPU being run. Not the program of the same name I have used in the past that reads that information and has some system monitoring capabilities. *This question was an A, B, C, or D with both the definition of CPUID and the features of CPUID as possible answers.*
• All cpu sockets, their names, functions, pin counts, and what CPUs used them. (Did you know Socket 7 could accept processors from multiple manufacturers?)
• The default addresses used by the primary and secondary IDE controllers.
• How a laser printer works.

Other problems I've had:

• Reading a question about optical drives speed ratings of  48x 32x 52x as having commas and thus getting the Write, Rewrite, and Read speeds question wrong.
• Associating "Master/Slave" and "Standalone" modes for PATA as the same thing. Why? Because I did that all the time in my Computer Diagnostics class. I'd plug a drive in, set as CS or Master and that was "Standalone".
• Vocabulary. I.e. What is a "Stepper motor" used in? "What is a stepper motor!?" (It is, in a sense, what I've been using consistently in my Portal 2 maps: MOMENTARY_ROT_BUTTON. Well, the SetPosition input at least.)
• Forgetting Decimal to Hexadecimal conversion (25 is 19, not 1a)
• Forgetting the pin counts of floppy and IDE ribbon cables. (34 and 40. However, you can also have 80pins for IDE. And the number 1 pin is not always denoted by a red stripe along the side like it says in the tests. Sometimes it is black or blue, depending on color scheme and aesthetics.)
• Why am I being asked how to change the desktop background in Windows? Granted, I've met someone who didn't know how to do that. But given the multiple ways you can do it (MS Paint, PhotoViewer, Desktop properties) and only being able to select one way as being correct, there's something wrong here.
• "How many devices can a SCSI controller support?" They don't ask which version (1, 2, or 3) and all their numbers are off by 1 which, I'm assuming, means they are zero-indexed.

I guess I'm still on the consumer side of things and reliant on web searches and, to a lesser extent (way less), books, to find relevant information. However, I don't believe memorizing every ISO standard and every connector pinout is a good measure of a PC Technician.

I need to overcome my mental roadblock of "I don't like the game, so I won't play. It shouldn't be this way. Should it?"