Exam MOUS Excel 2002 Core Vendor Microsoft Status Live Reviewer's Rating "A fair assessment of Excel 2002 proficiency." Test Price Varies per testing center (reviewer's cost was $65 U.S.) Who Should Take This Exam? Office professionals who want to certify core skills in Excel 2002. Exam Details 18 questions, most multi-part; 45 minute time limit. Available at IQ testing centers worldwide. Objectives Click here

Exam Basics
MOUS exams are not traditional question-and-answer tests with multiple choice answers. Instead, you're presented with an actual program interface and a document already started (for most questions). Steps appear in a pane below the application window, and you complete the steps exactly as directed. Then you are scored on how closely your result matches the computer's version of what's "correct."

For example, suppose that for one of the questions you see an invoice form onscreen. The instructions for this particular question might have two or three separate steps, and those steps might not necessarily be related to one another. For example, the steps might be:

1. Create a formula that multiplies the item in cell C7 by the tax rate in cell A18.
2. Center the word Memo across cells A1:A6.
3. Copy the formatting of cell D22 to cells D30:32 in a single operation.

That's not an actual question on the exam, but there are many questions similar to it. Some of the steps simply ask for a result (like 1 and 2 above); others not only want a result but want you to do it a certain way (3). For steps that specify a certain method, you must use that method to get full credit.

The Excel 2002 Core exam has 18 questions, but since each question has multiple steps, there are really more like 35 or 40 steps to accomplish. When you are finished with a question, click Next to go on. There is no backing up after you click Next, so make very sure you have double-checked your work.

When you finish, you'll receive a printout showing how well you scored in various categories. These categories are:

• Working with Cells and Cell Data: This tests your ability to enter and edit text in cells, find and replace, move and copy, and work with hyperlinks.
• Managing Workbooks: This tests how well you can open and save files, save in different formats and locations, create new folders, and send workbooks via e-mail.
• Formatting and Printing Worksheets: This tests your ability to apply formatting to a worksheet, including fonts, colors, shading, widths and heights, AutoFormat, and rotation.
• Modifying Workbooks: Here you show your proficiency at creating and deleting worksheets, hiding and unhiding, freezing rows and columns, checking spelling, and creating formulas that span multiple sheets.
• Creating and Revising Formulas: Here you show that you can create formulas, use basic functions and select the correct function for a particular task. It also covers named ranges, AutoSum and the formula palette. The function types covered include AVERAGE, SUM, COUNT, MIN, MAX, DATE, NOW, FV, PMT and IF.
• Creating and Modifying Graphics: This tests your ability to use graphics in a workbook, including clipart, graphics files, organization charts, and charts. You should know how to import or create and format each graphic type.
• Workgroup Collaboration: This tests your proficiency at managing edits from multiple users, including using revision tracking and comments.

You have 45 minutes to take the test, and to pass you must score at least 640. This score roughly corresponds to the average percentage score you get in each category. For example, if you get 100 percent in five categories and 91 percent and 67 percent in the other two, your score on the exam would be 946, and the actual average of those six scores would be 94 percent.

Tip: Study all aspects of a covered skill, not just the most common aspects of it. For example, the exam objectives cover hyperlinks, so you should study how to create all types of hyperlinks, not just ones that point to Web sites.

Using the Interface
When you sign on to the testing software for the first time, you create a user ID and password for yourself. The software will then ask you a series of rather personal survey questions, but you can decline to answer any of them.

Then you choose the exam you want to take, and a testing administrator enters his or her user name and password to authorize you to do so.

Next, a set of four informational screens appears explaining the interface. Some of the features of the interface include:

• A Reset button, for restarting the current question.
• A Next button, for moving on to the next question.
• A clock, which shows how much time you have remaining. You can turn off the clock display by clicking it.
• A counter that shows which question you're on (4/20, for example, means you are on question 4 out of 20).

Since the testing engine does to some degree "watch" the way you do things, it is sometimes advantageous after fumbling around for awhile to click Reset. This restarts the current question; any previous questions are unaffected. After resetting, you can zoom directly in on the activities with confidence.

The time you spend reading these instructions does not count against the 45 minutes you are allotted for the exam.

It's in the Details
As I mentioned in my review of the Word 2002 Core exam, I really like how the 2002 exams use a wide pane at the bottom of the screen to show the instructions. This makes the questions much easier to read that the dinky little floating pane used in the 2000 exams.

The grading mechanism also seems better able in the 2002 exam to distinguish between a wrong answer (i.e., the test-taker does not know what to do) and a non-standard answer (i.e., the test-taker did what was asked, but formatted something a little bit differently than the answer file shows). I have the same level of proficiency on both Excel 2000 and Excel 2002, but scored about 100 points higher on the 2002 exam. I attribute this to fairer grading.

However, this additional leeway does not mean you're free to do your own thing! To minimize the number of points subtracted because your answer is not an exact match, you must still follow the instructions to the letter. For example, if the instructions tell you to use Light Blue to format something, make sure you pick the color that Excel identifies as Light Blue (you can use the ScreenTip to determine a color's official name), not what you personally consider to be a light blue.

With this exam, as with other MOUS exams, it's important to follow the instructions for each question precisely, even if they don't make sense to you. Don't try to second-guess the exam designers! For example, suppose you are asked to use Format Painter to copy the formatting from one range to another. But the range to be copied from contains different formatting in each of the cells! Which formatting should you copy? For the answer, refer back to the question: it said to copy the formatting from the range. So the correct answer would be to select the specified range, click Format Painter, and paint the destination range, and not worry about whether the result is attractive. Don't think about things too logically or you'll drive yourself nuts -- just follow the orders.

Tip: Don't do anything that isn't specifically requested. For example, if you are told to insert a date, don't also apply formatting to it to match the surrounding cells unless told to do so.

The other thing to watch out for on this exam is not to let the sample document's content distract you. For example, suppose you are working with a sample document that has "File:" in cell A1 and nothing in A2. You would expect that the question would ask you to place the filename in A2, right? But the question instead tells you to place the filename in the header. A logical person might wonder whether the test designer meant that row A1 was the header, and might fill in cell A2 with the filename. But no—the question is actually referring to the worksheet header, which you access with the View, Header and Footer command.

Approach with Caution
Like the other MOUS exams, the Excel 2002 Core exam is a test of your ability to follow detailed instructions just as much as it's a test of your Microsoft Excel 2002 skills. If you read the directions carefully and keep your focus on what's actually being asked rather than what you think they should ask, you should have no trouble. Good luck!