MOS Exam Reviews

Submitted by Ezra

I wrote all the exams. I fail Word once, passed it the second time around. I guess I was not prepare the first time. I failed Excel twice and I am preparing to rewrite so I can get my master certification. All the exams call for total comittement and study times. Don't under-estimate any of the exams not even PowerPoint.

Best of luck with you.

Submitted by S. Leblanc

I just did the Word Exam along with 4 other classmates and we all failed big time.

I know Word very well and have been using Word since the 1997 Version but I didn't expect such a failure.

The poor quality of the screen, bad and unclear wording didn't help. The screen was too small therefore making it very difficult to see and read the questions. The questions (once you figured out where they were) had to be disserted before performing the tasks. There is just not enough time to dissert and play hide and seek. I found the wording terrible. I felt I was tested on my reading skills more than my Word skills. I am very concerned that this may be more of a money grab and I suspect there will be a 80% failure rate. The Word 97 had that same failure rate and the wording was changed for the 2000 exam. Guess they need money cause here we are again! Our group decided not to retake the exam. We paid once and we felt we were taken for a ride.

Submitted by Dave Falloon, TX

I’ve just finished the MOS Master track and I found the exams to be pretty straightforward with no real surprises away from the exam objectives. If you stick to the skill sets that are outlined for the exams, and can complete each of them using the actual application itself you shouldn’t have too many worries. I was pleasantly surprised with the Access exam, as I thought that was going to be the hardest (I don’t use the application much at all), but I got the feeling that the exam didn’t go too deep into how to use Access, but rather glossed over the basics of using the program.

Submitted by Samantha Wong, Toronto

Biggest tip I can give: read the questions carefully, as there are often many tasks to complete for each question, and remember that the answer you give should match exactly the requirements of the question (in other words, just do exactly what the question asks – no more, no less).

Submitted by Stephen

I finished Outlook exam yesterday (already done Word Expert and Excel Expert) and have to say that although I passed reasonably well, there were a few areas that I could have done with a bit more preparation for. My main problem I think was that I assumed that because I use Outlook everyday, I would have no problem doing the exam. It was basically the questions relating to areas that I don’t use everyday that threw me a bit – such as meetings, tasks etc.

Submitted by Sharra Williams, Overton, TN

I’ve finished all of the core exams and have just got the expert exams for word and excel to go (for the XP track). So far so good, although the testing centre I use is not the best – the screens are tiny, the chairs uncomfortable, and twice now the applications have frozen during the exam. I can even hear training sessions going on in the room next door. As for the exams, they are pretty straightforward. If you use the applications regularly, or know how to accomplish all of the points in the skill sets, then the exams are not too hard (so far). I got a bit stressed out during the Excel exam as some of the questions were quite long, and it seemed I was running out of time, but quite a few of the questions toward the end were quite short, so I caught up with the time there. I’ll post back when I’ve done the expert exams for word and excel.

Submitted by Rob Arona, Papatoetoe, Auckland, NZ

I’ve only done the Word and Excel for 2003 and I failed the Word exam the first time round, but that was more down to nerves I think. I should have passed the exam because I know how to use Word quite well, but I went too slow and ran out of time. The next time I did it, about two weeks later, things went much better as I didn’t check my answers so much as I did the first time. The Excel exam was difficult, but I managed to pass it. There were quite a few questions on formulas and functions, so make sure you know those pretty well. It also pays to be quite familiar with charts.

I had purchased the Step-by-step books for each of the topics and they were pretty good so I think I’ll stay with those type of books for the remainder of the exams I’m doing.

Submitted by Wyoung

I had to do the MOS Master for my work (helpdesk) and found all of the exams to be reasonably easy to pass. I used CBT’s to prepare for the exams, and did each one a week apart so that I had time to study for each one. I found Access to be the hardest, but I left that one until last so I was used to the format of the exams by that stage (one less thing to worry about).

Just work your way through the exam objectives on the Microsoft site and if you can do all of them for each subject you’re good to go. The one thing I found though was that you have to know the menus pretty well (instead of shortcuts that you might tend to use in the real world). As they say, there’s the quick way and then there’s the Microsoft way.