Skills inventory for Excel: Basic

Use the following form to gauge students skill level entering the class (students have copies in the
introductions of their student manuals). For each skill listed, have students rate their familiarity from 1
to 5, with five being the most familiar. Emphasize that this is not a test. Rather, its intended to provide
students with an idea of where theyre starting from at the beginning of class. If a student is wholly
unfamiliar with all the skills, he or she might not be ready for the class. A student who seems to
understand every skill, on the other hand, might need to move on to the next course in the series.

Skill 1 2 3 4 5

Starting Microsoft Excel

Identifying rows, columns, cell references, and the active cell
Accessing and using Help
Opening, saving, and closing workbooks
Entering and editing text, values, formulas
Inserting, moving, and resizing pictures
Using AutoFill
Moving and copying data
Inserting and deleting ranges
Using relative and absolute references in formulas
Using the SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, and COUNTA
functions
Formatting text
Formatting numbers
Applying cell borders
Changing column width and row height
Checking spelling in worksheets
Finding the synonyms of a word
Previewing and printing worksheets
Controlling Page Setup, including headers and footers
Creating charts based on worksheet data
Changing chart types
Formatting chart elements
Printing charts
Freezing panes, splitting worksheets, and hiding and unhiding data
Setting print titles and page breaks Navigating and
printing multiple worksheets Renaming and color-
coding worksheet tabs Inserting, copying, moving,
and deleting worksheets