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The Secret To Passing The Microsoft Office Specialist Exam |
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If you are trying to get ahead in you career today, you will
know that the computer skills you have under your belt are
what will make the difference between you moving up the ladder
or down. When it comes to trying to prove your computer competency
in using office applications there is no other certification
path that stands out like the Microsoft Office Specialist
program. With over 3 million exams now undertaken and well
over 2 million Microsoft Office Specialist Certificates issued,
this certification has become the one to get to prove your
skills in using Microsoft Office.
One thing I have found though is that many people fail these
exams first time around and there really is no reason for
it. The way the Microsoft Office Specialist exam works is
that you will be taken into a room and sat at a computer.
On this computer you will be asked by the computer to carry
out a series of tasks. Each set of tasks is designed to represent
tasks you would be expected to do on a day-to-day basis.
These exams really are a good representation of what people
would be expected to do on a day-to-day basis. I should say
I am a little bias since I am a Microsoft Office Specialist
Master Instructor and my company is a Microsoft Office Specialist
Authorised Testing Centre but having trained about 4,000 to
5,000 students through my training centre in Townsville, Australia
the certification exams really do represent the skills you
would be expected to perform in your workplace.
There are in fact seven exams in the Microsoft Office Specialist
Program and they are the Microsoft Word Core and Expert Exams,
Microsoft Excel Core and Expert Exams, Microsoft Outlook Core
Exam, Microsoft PowerPoint Core Exam and the Microsoft Access
Core Exam. If you were a Secretary or Personal Assistant,
I would expect at a minimum you would have passed the Microsoft
Word Core Exam and the Microsoft Excel Core Exam. If you hold
the position of a salesman, I would expect you to have the
same certifications as the Personal Assistant or secretary
plus the Microsoft PowerPoint Core certification and maybe
the Microsoft Excel Expert Certification and Microsoft Access
Core Certification.
Ok, so how do we prepare for these exams.
First of all, you need to choose how you want to study for
these exams. In terms of passing these exams it doesn’t
matter whether you want to do a course at a training centre,
buy a self paced training program or doing the training on
the Internet. Use the form of training that you feel most
comfortable with. Me personally, I prefer to use self-paced
training where as many of my students prefer classroom based
training. Each training method has its own advantages and
disadvantages. One thing to note, if you are going to go to
a training centre, make sure at the very least they are a
Microsoft Office Specialist Testing Centre and that they will
give you a training manual and exercise disk to take home
with you to keep. If the training centre doesn’t give
you a manual then don’t waste your time with the course
even if they might be the cheapest. In computer training,
cheapest definitely does not mean the best.
Step 1. Once you have done the course or studied the Self-Paced
material make sure you redo all the material within 7-days!
One mistake many people make, is thinking that they can do
a two-day computer training course then walk away as an expect.
If that’s what you think, than it is totally fanciful.
Computer Training is like a sport, if you want to be a professional
then you must train as a professional. The first step you
need to do in any training regime is to go back through all
the material you did in the computer training course in the
first 7 days after you the finish of the course.
Studies have shown over the years, that each 7 days you don’t
review your material, you will loose 50% of the material.
Each week you don’t review the material you loose another
50% which means in 6 weeks or so, you will remember nothing
from your course. All in all you may as well, not have done
the course in the first place.
Step 2. Write a brief statement in your own words, the key
terms used during your course.
The next thing you must DO! Is to write a brief statement
in your own words about all the key terms you learnt during
the course or in your self-paced material. One of the challenges
you will have in the exam is deciphering what they are asking
you to do. Sometimes, I have found the language is very difficult
to understand because it is written in American English (no
offence intended to my American colleagues). In one of my
Microsoft Outlook Core Exams, I was certain I was going to
fail the exam. The only reason I passed was by identifying
the key terms in the text that related to the application
and by knowing those I worked out in each question what exactly
they were asking me to do.
Step 3. Practice, Practice, Practice – Get lots of Practice
Exercises
The next thing you must do is to get as much practice as
possible. Most training schools will have structured their
material so that at the end of each topic you will have some
questions to answer and also some sort of homework exercise
to do that will put all the tasks together into one exercise.
The key here is to practice as much as possible. Check out
the internet for places where you can get lots of practical
exercises or make up some of your own.
Step 4 – Do a Pre-Assessment Exam to see if you are
ready.
One thing I have learnt from doing these professional exams
is that they are absolutely nothing like the exams you would
have undertaken at school, college or at University. My recommendation
that I would make to anyone sitting computer certification
exams is to purchase a pre-assessment exam for the exam you
want to take. What the pre-assessment exams do is to test
your skills prior to sitting the real exams. Most of the pre-assessment
exams I have seen are pretty good and pretty close to the
real exams. I personally recommend either the pre-assessment
exams from Certiport, Transcender or Self-Test Software.
When you do the pre-assessment exam, you should score 80%
or above on the first go. If you don’t, do not do what
I have seen many people do, and that is to just keep doing
the exam till you get all the questions right. What will happen
if you do this is you will build up a memory of the questions
and you end up knowing the requirements of the question without
truly being able to interpret what the question is asking
you to do.
Once you have done the exam once; DO NOT under any circumstances
re-do that exam for 7 days. This will help stop the memory
build up, of the questions.
What you MUST do once you have completed the pre-assessment
exam and got a result is to look at the results of the test
and find out which questions you got wrong and go back and
study those areas more thoroughly. Then, after you have reviewed
the material and waited 7 days, then try the pre-assessment
test again.
You should in the second attempt score 90% or better. If
you do achieve this then you are ready to sit the real exam.
If you don’t, then you need to follow the same process
again for the next 7-days.
After the third time using the same Pre-Assessment exam,
I recommend people try a different pre-assessment exam before
being 100% sure they will pass the exam. The more you use
the same exam, the bigger risk you face in retaining that
memory of questions.
Most pre-assessment exams usually come with 2 or 3 different
exams to try. If after three attempts of each pre-assessment
exam and you still find that you can’t pass at 80% or
better, I would strongly recommend finding a mentor and also
checking to make sure the training material you have purchased
is covering the required material.
Step 5 – Pass the Microsoft Office Specialist Certification
Exam!
Obviously once you have done this much training and practice
and you have passed your pre-assessment exams you are now
ready to sit the real exam. One thing to remember, Microsoft
Office Specialist Exams are commercial exams and because of
this, if you fail the exam, you have to pay to resit the exam.
The cost to resit these exams can vary from as low as $80
US to $135 US, in many cases the prices are set by the Microsoft
Office Specialist Testing Centre.
The good news is that if you have followed the steps I have
outlined, I will be very surprised if you didn’t pass
on your first attempt.
Step 6 – You Are Finally A Microsoft Office Specialist
About the Author:
The Author Chris Le Roy is a Microsoft Office Specialist Master
Instructor and trains over 2000 students per year to become
Microsoft Office Specialists. His company One-on-One Personal
Computer Training has a range of training kits to help you
prepare for the Microsoft Office Specialist Certification
Exam. Chris also has a range of pre-assessment exams available
for sale as well at his website at http://www.1-on-1.biz
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