Study Guide for the CMC Computer Proficiency Exam See your Student Services Counselor for Administration

of this exam. Note to Counselors:

To receive an Associate of Arts Degree Colorado Mountain College requires its graduates to be proficient in using computers. Therefore, in order to graduate, a student must demonstrate proficiency via an examination administrated by the college, or take CIS118. If you take the course it will be applied to the elective credit within the degree. It is the students responsibility to take active accountability for his or her progression through the required curriculum towards graduation. One way for students to demonstrate his or her computer proficiency is to take the SAM Challenge exam. Although Cengage Learning, formally Course Technology, administrates this SAM Challenge exam, CMC uses the exam to demonstrate computer proficiency. Students are not always accurate in evaluating their computer proficiency level. For instance, students frequently receive a 100% on the Windows section of the exam while failing the Excel section. For this reason, students who expect to pass this exam, frequently do not. It is in the students best interest to take the proficiency exam no later than the semester prior to their anticipated graduation. This way a student who does not pass the proficiency exam is able to enroll in CIS118. The SAM Challenge exam is a 60-minute exam with 70 questions covering Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Word 2007, and Windows XP functions. All questions are a hands-on format. For each question, you have two attempts to determine the correct answer. In order to perform well on the exam it is imperative to read each question carefully. Many mistakes are made when a student does not accurately perform the entire function even when he or she might otherwise know how to do the function. For instance, you must know the difference between a move and cut and paste function. There is also a difference between delete and cut. Also accurately select only the text the question requires. A study guide is provided below; the student should verify at a computer that he or she could accurately perform the task in the first attempt. The student should also understand the technical vocabulary in which the questions are asked. A passing score is 80% for the first attempt and 85% for the second attempt. One re-test is allowed per academic year. The academic year begins 87969374.doc Page 1 of 4

at the beginning of the summer through spring semester. A new academic year begins the day after of the spring semester ends for the previous academic year. Below is Study Guide for Students: Common mistakes students make: Not completely reading the question Not selecting the item(s) to be affected, or selecting too little or too much of the content Not understanding the difference between functions based on terminology o Changing Style vs. Changing Font o Clear vs. Delete in Excel o Autofit to Cell vs. Best fit o Questions on Word Tables vs. Excel Spreadsheets o Move vs. Copy/Paste Students trying the same action after being judged wrong instead of pausing to be sure one of the above was not the cause Study Guide for Windows Be Familiar with the following Skills: 1. Minimize a window 2. Right-click an object 3. Create Shortcut 4. My Computer 5. My Documents Folder 6. Create Folder 7. Rename File 8. Copy File Between Disks 9. Move File on Same Disk Selecting 10. text Microsoft Word: 11. Save As - Location 12. AutoCorrect 13. Print Document 14. Print Preview 15. Use the Undo and Redo buttons 16. Move Text 17. Ruler - Display 18. Help - Display Document 19. Cut and paste text 20. Format Painter 87969374.doc Page 2 of 4

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Fonts Create a bulleted list Bullets - Change Type Indent Paragraph Justify Text Line Spacing Style - Apply Reveal formatting Find Text Page Break Create a table Picture - Insert Clip Art Headers - Display Footer - Page Number Margins Footnotes/Endnotes Edit Footnote

Microsoft Excel 39. Move Cells 40. Copy Cells 41. Border Lines 42. Color Text 43. Align Cell Contents Rotate 44. Text 45. Center Across Cells 46. Number Format - Currency 47. Number Format - Date 48. Cell Formatting - Remove 49. Insert Row 50. Column Width 51. Delete Cells 52. Series - Fill Cells 53. Sort 54. Chart - Create 55. Create charts using the pie chart types Apply a theme to a 56. worksheet 57. Set Print Area 58. Create formulas using the MAX function

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Microsoft PowerPoint 59. Print Slides 60. Re-Order Slides 61. Insert New Slide 62. Delete Slide 63. Modify Slide Layout 64. Picture - Insert 65. Clip Art - Insert 66. Create a custom animation 67. Run a slide show 68. Scale Graphic 69. Outline View 70. Outline - Demote Layer

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