Last December, out of boredom, I signed up for a computer level exam (major: Level 2 WPS Office Advanced Applications and Design). Later, I forgot about it, and it wasn't until early March, just before the exam, that I suddenly remembered. I even wrote a blog post about it [Taking a Computer Level Certificate]. After that, I bought an exam textbook online, quickly studied it, and went to take the exam.
The entire exam was conducted on a computer and consisted of two parts:
- Theoretical part, consisting of multiple-choice questions, a total of 20 questions, 20 points (including 10 points for general basic knowledge);
- Practical part:
(1) Word operation, 1 question, 30 points;
(2) Excel operation, 1 question, 30 points;
(3) PowerPoint operation, 1 question, 20 points.
The exam duration was 120 minutes, which felt quite tight for me. The practical questions had too many steps, and although I had practiced the real questions beforehand, the modules involved were still quite numerous. It was difficult to master everything with just one round of practice, so during the exam, I was figuring things out as I went along. By the time I reached the last PowerPoint operation question, I had only completed half of it when the exam time was up, so I could only hurriedly save and submit my exam.
Of course, the final result was still good. Today, I saw in the news that I could check my score, so I logged into the China Education Examination Network to check, and the result was: Good. This score range is 80-89 points, without a specific score. I think if I had a bit more time or was more familiar with the operations, I could have completed the final PowerPoint practical and easily achieved an excellent score (90+). It's a bit of a small regret.
Finally, a word about exam preparation.
Overall, this exam is not very difficult. The overall pass rate mentioned online is only 20%-30%, which suggests that many candidates just signed up for the exam but didn't really prepare, so they didn't pass. As long as you prepare, passing should not be a problem; at least achieving a passing score (60-79 points) should be quite feasible.
First, for the theoretical part, there are a total of 20 multiple-choice questions worth 20 points, of which 10 points are for general computer knowledge. I recommend browsing through the question bank for this part, memorizing the simpler ones, and giving up on those that are too difficult, as they cover topics like stacks and trees that non-computer majors may have never heard of. Since the score is not high, spending too much time studying this part would not be cost-effective. There are only 10 questions in total, so remembering 2-3 and guessing another 2-3 should get you around 5 points. The other 10 points are about WPS theoretical knowledge, which shouldn't be too difficult; you should be able to remember them by looking at the question bank. So, getting around 10-15 points in the theoretical part should be possible.
Now, let's talk about the practical part.
My experience is to buy a set of exam preparation books online, which are not expensive, only a few dollars. They contain theoretical knowledge, a question bank, and also provide practical software. Skip the theoretical knowledge and go straight to the question bank, then practice all the practical questions in the software at least once. Most of those are real questions; in fact, all the practical questions I encountered during the exam were from the question bank. Moreover, the WPS exam is a bit easier than the MS exam because the WPS exam has a later time and a smaller question bank. When I was studying, there seemed to be only 7 or 9 sets of questions, but I don't remember clearly, while Microsoft Office Level 2 has accumulated over 40 sets of questions, which would take too much time to practice all.
Practicing the real practical questions at least once is the baseline. If time allows, you can practice a few more times to increase your proficiency, as the exam time is really a bit tight. As long as you can complete the 3 practical questions on time, you should be able to score most of the 80 points in the practical part. Overall, achieving an excellent score should not be a problem. Of course, if time is insufficient, practicing once is also acceptable, at least ensuring a passing score.