How can I study for the OPAC?

March 6, 2009 9:54 AM

Has anyone taken the Office Proficiency Assessment and Certification (OPAC) test recently, or have documentation on what exactly it tests for in Word and Excel?

At the end of May, my husband and I will be moving from Chicago to a TBD city for grad school — possibly in Michigan, California, or Colorado.

I will not be in school at all, and am instead looking for full-time office work.

One of the temp services I'm looking at uses the OPAC. In the early-'90s I did poorly on a similar test, because I didn't know the exact features that it would test on ahead of time, and it didn't allow me to work like I normally do for things I don't know (such as, quickly check the help menu when it asks me to make block quotes).

I have a lot of office experience, but the memory of flubbing the test is sticking with me.

Online I've found a syllabus from 2002, an expensive testing booklet from 1999 (would it be worth it?), and general descriptions on the OPAC website.

Does anyone have recent, firsthand experience?

Thanks!

posted by limeswirltart to work & money (3 comments total)

No recent, first-hand experience here, I'm afraid. But from looking at your last link, it appears the testing software has been updated to test MS Office 2007, which is very different from earlier versions (before 2007). So I'm pretty sure any resources from years prior would be not worth it.

Check your local junior college for short MS Office classes. If the school has an "Office Skills" program (secretarial, not MS), they would be a good source of info.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 10:34 AM on March 6

If you have never noodled around in Office 2007 here is a link to a handy help/search tool, Search Commands, that will help you find what you need in various tabs. I found it good to find both advanced and common tools.
posted by jadepearl at 3:00 PM on March 6

I just took the OPAC test for Word and Excel today. I used this
Test Description PDF (download) to figure out what free courses to take at the Microsoft Office Training website.

There wasn't anything on the test that wasn't mentioned on that PDF and we were allowed to use the Help menu if needed. My testing center was using a really old version of Word, so I would recommend looking at a few different versions of the software. Hope this helps and good luck!
posted by tbrit at 5:06 PM on May 6