When I took this exam recently, I was immediately impressed with the sophistication of the testing software. It actually opened up the Word program and displayed a document, and then a pop-up box instructed me to perform certain actions. When I finished performing those actions, I clicked Next to go to the next question. According to the testing directions displayed at the onset, partial credit is given for partially-right answers, so it's in your best interests to at least attempt to answer every question.

Another nice feature of the testing software is the Reset button. You can click Reset to abort any work you have done on the current question and reload it. This comes in handy if you need to fumble around for awhile before figuring out how to accomplish a certain task. After you figure it out, you can use Reset to start over and zero in directly on the task without worrying what else you have inadvertently changed in the sample document.

The test is not adaptive, but you cannot return to a question after completing it. Once you click that Next button to move on, there's no returning. Therefore, it's important to carefully check your work before clicking Next. You don't want to have a "Doh!" experience two seconds after that click, remembering some little thing that you overlooked.

The score you receive is out of 1000 points, as with all MOUS 2000 exams. The minimum score required to pass varies with each exam; for the Word 2000 exam it is 770. (For the Expert Word 2000 Exam, in contrast, the minimum score to pass is 700.)

When you finish the exam, a message appears on-screen -- after about 15 agonizing seconds of waiting -- telling you whether you passed. Before you leave the testing center, you'll be given a printout showing your score and the percent correct in each of the skill categories (described in the following section). It also lists a TRA number, which is your unique ID number for this test. You'll need that number if you plan to apply for a Microsoft program such as the MOUS Authorized Instructor program. Your official certificate will arrive from Microsoft in two to three weeks.

Skills Tested
The exam covers skills from several skill sets, which are broken down for you very thoroughly in the Exam Objectives on the Microsoft Web site. Here's a quick summary:

• Working with Text. This tests your ability to type and edit text, apply formatting, check spelling, and insert special text objects like symbols, page breaks and date/time codes.
• Working with Paragraphs. This tests how well you can apply formatting at the paragraph level. It includes bullets, alignment, spacing, tabs, indents and outlining.
• Working with Documents. This tests your ability to format on a page, section, and document level. It covers moving through a document, working the different views, and setting margins, columns, headers/footers and other section-level formatting.
• Managing Files. Here you show your proficiency at opening and saving documents in various formats and locations, saving as a Web page, using hyperlinks and sending a document via e-mail.
• Using Tables. Here you demonstrate your ability to create and modify a table, including adding and deleting rows and columns, changing row height and column width, and formatting table cells.
• Working with Pictures and Charts. This tests how well you can insert and manage clip art and other graphics and employ the Drawing toolbar tools to manipulate and format drawn objects.

Even though this test covers a tightly circumscribed skill set, it is not a test that a beginner-level user can easily pass. Whoever designed the test and its questions was obviously an experienced Word user with a good feel for the tricky parts of Word formatting, because you'll find some real-world puzzlers that many of us struggle with regularly, such as how to make a picture align neatly with a particular paragraph or how to insert a page break without screwing up the formatting of the paragraph before or after it.

Preparation Tools
Any Word book that covers basic and intermediate skills can prepare you for this exam. Some popular choices include Using Word 2000 and The Word 2000 Bible.

Most helpful, however, is practical experience with the program. A hands-on course in Word, such as the one-day course series by DDC Publishing, can help tremendously. For this exam, try the proficient-level Word course; for the Word 2000 Expert exam, try the Expert level Word course. Both are MOUS-approved courseware designed specifically to prepare you for the exams.

Tricks, Tips and Traps
I took six MOUS tests in one day recently, and this one was the first. I thought that since Word 2000 was my strongest program, and this test covered basic features only, it would be a walk in the park. However, of the six tests I took and passed that day, I scored the lowest on this one. My first reaction was disbelief. I thought I had nailed every single question!

Many people score lower than their potential on this exam, I found out by talking to the testing center administrator later. He even told a story of a Word instructor with 15 years of software experience who failed the test, even though he knew every skill on it backward and forward.

What happened? A couple of things. One was that the instructor didn't read some of the questions closely enough, or follow the instructions literally enough. Another was that the grading system for the test, while very sophisticated, is machine-driven and therefore not fully accurate.

First, a note about the question wording. Read each question carefully. There are no unimportant words in the instructions, and nothing you can take for granted. For example, suppose a question asks you to format all the numbered list items in a document in a certain way. You look on-screen and see a numbered list of three items, and you make that change to them. But wait. The question said all of the numbered list items, and if you Page Down, you'll see that this document contains another numbered list on the next page.

Also make sure that you don't get so involved in the action that you don't get the insertion point positioned correctly before performing the action. For example, suppose the document has lots of paragraphs, all formatted differently. The directions might say to insert a table, graphic or some other object directly above the shaded paragraph. Make sure you put it in the right place or you'll get only partial credit for your solution.

Then there's the unavoidable problem of machine-grading on a skill-based exam. There are actually two problems with the grading system for this test. One is endemic to the testing procedure, and one is specific to word processing programs.

The MOUS testing procedure, unlike most tests, has you digging in and actually performing activities on a document. Then to grade a particular question, the testing software compares your answer to a sample "correct" document, and any differences between the two are points-off. Here's a really annoying example: If the question instructs you to select something and make it bold, you must then click away from the bolded text to deselect it before clicking Next to submit your answer. Otherwise the grading software detects a difference between your answer (which has selected text) and the sample (which does not) and points are deducted, according to the testing center administrator I spoke with.

This same testing procedure applies throughout all the MOUS exams, but it's much more likely to cause problems on the Word exam than on any of the others. Why? Because on most of the other exams, you are working with fields, cells or other defined areas. In Word, however, you have a big blank canvas of a document, with much greater potential for inserting or deleting an extra space, positioning the cursor incorrectly, and so on. For example, in Access, a skill being tested might be the ability to create a table. When it checks the answer file against yours, if the same table exists in both files, you get credit. But in Word, if the skill is, for example, deleting a paragraph, and you delete all the text in the paragraph but not the paragraph marker itself, you get it wrong. Tricky stuff.

Final Advice
Having the knowledge needed to pass this test is not the only thing you need to worry about on this tricky exam. Knowing how the testing process works and obeying its conventions is important as well. So what can you do to make sure you get proper credit for your knowledge on this test? Several things:

• Read each question very carefully. Then read it again. Make sure you understand what the question is asking before you begin working.
• Position the insertion point exactly as directed.
• Do not delete any extra paragraph breaks in the document unless directed to do so.
• Do not perform any extra formatting other than what is directed.
• The directions show text that you type or select with different formatting, but this is only so you can see it more easily in the directions; do not attempt to duplicate this formatting in your answer.
• If you have selected anything, click away from it to deselect it before moving to the next question.
• Re-check your answer before clicking Next to move to the next question.

Good luck!

Have you taken this exam? Was your experience similar to Faithe's? Post your comments below and share your experience with your peers.