MOS 2013 - answers and facts

Discussion in 'Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS), Office 365' started by Steve17, Dec 19, 2015.

  1. Steve17

    Steve17 New Member

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    I will start this thread with some answers/facts I couldn't find myself anywhere else. I found them the difficult way - I failed my exam first time (MS Outlook 2013), took it second time with more then 890 points and 6 min ahead of time. I have all reasons to believe my facts and my conclusions can apply to all MOS 2013 exams, not only Outlook.
    Other contributors to this thread - please report clear facts and firm opinions only and make sure the readers understand what is a fact and what is an opinion.


    In no particular order I will start with these:

    Timing is VERY important. I failed miserably first time with several questions remaining and succeeded second time finished 6 minutes early. I did not improve my actual knowledge significantly between the two exams, but I improved significantly with the timing and precision.

    1. FACT: The counters at the exam are counter-intuitive and not-logical. The question counter goes like that: 24 of 47 while the time counter counts down i.e. 27 min REMAINING. This way it is inconvenient to know whether you are doing well or doing bad with time. OPINION: it makes much more sense if you see 24 of 47 questions passed and 23 minutes PASSED. This way you immediately know you are ahead of time. (in my case the number of questions was less than 50, the total time was 50 min). SUGGESTION: Bring your own timer and use the moments between the questions to check it. Not a smart phone, because they will take it from you, just a watch.

    2. GMetrix tests are very useful. From the tests I learned a trick or two which I did not know and did not read in the textbook, but their real usefulness is to give you the feeling of the actual exam and give you a feeling of how the time goes. ADVANTAGES: Environment almost the same as the exam, you can repeat the same question over and over and learn details, you can see the right answer explained in steps. DISADVANTAGES: They are NOT exactly the same as the exam - for example - the scoring system does not follow the same rules (read further). They are not "smart". If the question asks you to write in the body of the email "Let's have lunch together!" and you forget the exclamation mark, or replace it with a dot, or between the words you hit the space bar twice instead of once --- your whole answer is WRONG. I don't know if the exam itself is as dumb as that, so I was dedicated to precision my second time. Another difference which I noticed (Outlook related but you can extrapolate to other exams I guess) - the number of contacts in my address book was much much smaller than that in the actual exam. The number of emails in my Inbox and my Drafts was much, much smaller than the actual exam. This may create the misleading feeling that finding a partiucular contact or a particular email is easier than it is.

    3. Scoring system
    I don't think the scoring system is explained anywhere. FACTS: GMetrix test gives you 1 point per answer and calculates the final result this way -- if you answered 43 out of 48 questions, your result is 43/48 = 89.58% = 896 points. The actual exam DOES NOT calculate like that. Here is how I know - Let's assume for a moment it uses the same formula as the tests. If the total number of questions is 47 and you got 663 points at the exam, and you multiply 47 by 0.663 you will get 31.161 which is supposedly the number of correct answers. This is not an integer because of the rounding which was applied to the points, but it differs too much from the closest integer for the assumption to be true. For example if you multiply 48 by 0.896 of the above example you will get 43.008. Analysis shows that even in the worst case of rounding the digit after the decimal point should be zero. I checked with my real exam results and it is NOT. Conclusion: The exam does not use such a simple formula as the GMetrix tests.


    more to follow....
     
    Juelz likes this.
  2. Steve17

    Steve17 New Member

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    4. Skipping difficult questions. This is a very powerful option. Use it! My advice is - if you don't know the exact solution and you did not advance at all within 30, maximum 40 seconds, skip the question without any hesitation. When you click "Skip" a long message will pop-up on screen. IMO the existence of this long explanatory message there is unfair, because reading it wastes your precious time. But this is how it is. Don't read it, just click OK and focus on the next question. FACTS: When you answer the last question you will be presented with the first skipped question, then the second skipped question etc. You don't have control over the order in which the skipped questions come - they come in their initial order. You cannot skip a skipped question for the second time - you either answer correctly or incorrectly but you have to submit it in order to continue to the next skipped question.
     
    Juelz likes this.

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