MOS Study Guide for Microsoft Excel Exam MO-200

Unlike my first test in which I took an online course and the first book in this series for (MO-100), I decided to try just the book for the MO-200. I got a 97% on the test with just this book, taking notes by hand with two colors of ink, and using a strict 45 minute pomodoro technique while listening to synthwave music.

Easy to follow, there are downloadable exercise files.

I am rather experienced with Excel and would like to get my MO-200 and MO-201 Certifications. This book was very informative. I actually did learn a couple things that I was not aware of. The only negative comment is that the Results downloads were not correct in several places. Just two examples, the book states to pull the first "two" letters of the person's last name, the result has it pulling "three" letters. One of the Results in Chapter 5 that asked for an Alt Text, did not show any Alt Text. It would be helpful if the results were more accurate to the testing questions given.

Normally, a vendor's "official" guide is of lesser quality. Not so with these. The materials are logically presented and the collateral material fits quite nicely.

I don't think the 5 or 1 star reviews are all that accurate for this very mediocre product. Here are my observations:1. As an e-text it is very reasonably priced, and the formatting is adequate. No complaints there.2. There is basically no context given, and examples are sometimes unnecessarily complex/awkward, and often wanting for a few more screenshots (and for a digital edition, who cares about extra pages?)3. There ARE better options out there. If you are planning on getting the cert, you can purchase a package that includes study guides (that are less exhaustive but more readable) and multiple practice tests, with (automated) feedback. I am planning on getting multiple MOS certs, so I bought 1 year access to study guides, practice tests, and tutorials to all of them for under a hundred dollars. I was already quite proficient on excel, so while I spent half an hour making it through the first couple examples in this book, I spent less than an hour reviewing everything, and another 45 minutes taking a practice exam where I scored over to 850, and got pointers on the couple questions I got wrong (though at least one I got correct but the auto-grade was a bit finicky. This may be true of the actual exam too though...).So, you really have 3 options as I see it:If you know a lot about the system already, but want some training at the cheapest price: buy the kindle book.If you know at least a moderate amount about the system already, but want to brush up on rusty areas, buy the training package direct from the test company. It's under fifty dollars for 1 subject, and under one hundred for all (word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, and access).If you have very little knowledge of the product you'll need to establish at least a foundational understanding before attempting either of these methods. You need to know a lot before being able to use this book (well?), but with a fairly basic understanding of excel you should be able to self teach with the test manufacturer's tutorials.So, I'm sure this book is for someone (1 star is too harsh), and the kindle version represents the lowest price for training, I think most people would be better off spending a few more dollars on other options.

There were a few problems with the book, but no errata listed on the Microsoft Press site. I used to be able to count on the books from Microsoft Press. If there were issues, there would at least be errata for those books. That appears to no longer be the case.Even so, I took the exam and scored 1000 (a perfect score). This may be less due to this study guide and more to the fact that I've been taking most of the Excel exams starting with Excel 97, back in 1998.

I’m certain the positive reviewers are predominantly Microsoft employees, or paid contractors . These books are horrible in every respect. You would think an organization like Microsoft would have published a much higher quality product. Here’s a short list of the issues encountered (I won’t list them all as it’s a waste of my time).1. Font is microscopic and light ink (meaning not black) or faded.2. What few graphics within are even smaller and exceedingly blurry.3. Ever heard of color? There is little if any.4. Ever heard of large-print? Good luck finding any.5. Content and lesson quality? Never found out as the books were unreadable.I’m on a limited budget, so I ordered these lesson plans directly from Microsoft Publishing because I read many reviews indicating they were stellar tutorials. Complete crap. These books are a scam, and the authors should be ashamed.I will be repeating this identical review for each book I purchased (I ordered them all at the same time and I’m in the process of returning every one of them).

And there is no errata. I expect more from these study guides.

The product has typos and the exercise files are different from the ones shown on the book.Very disappointing.I expected the books to be high quality as they were from Microsoft but this looks like a project given to a summer intern with no one checking their work