Tips from recently certified forum members in Exam 77-728: Microsoft Excel 2016 Expert?

[tomca]

Hi everyone,

I want to sit the MOS Excel 2016 Expert exam at some point within the next 3-6 months. The exam's learning outcomes are as per the attached.

I have downloaded Gmetrix and am going through all the practice tests.

Can anyone who recently passed this let me know whether Gmetrix practice was sufficient to pass this test, or one of the Microsoft guides was necessary?

I notice on the Gmetrix practice tests that sometimes going about something in a slightly different way to how the markers envisaged if (even if it works) gets you marked down which is a slight concern.

Any tips would be gratefully received.

Tom

[Robpw]

Hi Tom,

I passed the 77-728 exam this morning. I prepared for it in 3 ways:

1. Courses on Lynda.com (Cert Prep Excel Expert 2016, Excel 2016 Advanced Formulas and Functions, Excel 2016 Pivot Tables in depth).
2. The official Microsoft Study Guide.
3. The GMetrix practice tests

The Lynda courses were very helpful but there were some areas that weren’t covered (even in the Cert Prep course). I’d recommend it if you have access to Lynda

The study guide was also useful and I’d recommend buying it, but again there are some areas that are skimmed over and really needed more detail. Eg financial and Cube functions

I though the Gmetrix practice tests were useful to practice the format of the test but I think there are problems with the ways it’s assessed. I agree with you that you often seem to loose marks if you answer a question correctly but don’t do it exactly how the question setters envisioned it. There were questions that I was sure I got right but kept being marked wrong, and when I re-did the test in practice mode and looked at their solution the differences were insignificant and didn’t affect the result of the formulas. There were even some where I copied their solution step by step and it was still marked wrong, even when I copied and pasted their final formula into the spreadsheet.
Overall, I think you need to do more than just the Gmetrix tests. Don’t worry too much about your GMetrix scores – just use it as a way to practice the exam format. If you’re confident you answered the question correctly, you probably did. Another problem with relying exclusively on Gmetrix is that it only comes with 4 practice tests, so if you repeatedly do these tests to revise you’ll end up memorising the answers rather than thinking about how Excel works.

I hope this helps.

Good Luck!
Rob

[tomca]

Thanks Rob this is very helpful. I ordered the official guide book yesterday and will have this by Tuesday.

I'm quite happy with the Gmetrix tests (I've done the four you mentioned) and only struggled on the Cube function.

I’ll have a look at Lynda too because I hadn't seen this before.

[TedMosby]

Hi everyone,

I realize this is an old thread but I hope that people who sit this exam in the future will find my post useful.

I just passed the 77-728 MOS Excel 2016 Expert exam this morning in my first try with a score of 850/1000 (700 to pass). I want to give you a few tips on the study resources and the exam itself:

- Microsoft recommends you use Excel for at least a year before sitting this exam. While I’m sure it’s possible to get a good grip on Excel much quicker than that, in my experience a year of regular use of Excel did help a lot when I was studying.

- I think that the hardest thing about this exam is the lack of official practice tests (more on that below) but the exam itself isn’t too difficult.

- I used two main sources to study: MOS 2016 Study Guide for Microsoft Excel Expert book by Paul McFedries and Cert Prep: Excel 2016 Microsoft Office Expert (77-728) Lynda course.

- I believe that the MOS 2016 Study Guide is the official guide for this exam and in my experience it covered everything I needed to know. The practice files in particular are very useful, however, be aware that not everything that’s in the book will be tested in the practice files, i.e. don’t just do the practice files but actually read the whole book at least once if not twice. In short, I’d say that this is the best study resource for the 77-728 exam.

- The Cert Prep Lynda course is a good place to start (I first covered this course and then moved on to the book) and I’d absolutely recommend it but it covers only 50% or so of the material you need to know. Don’t just take that course and think you know everything that can come up on the exam. Nevertheless, the practice exam at the end is great and is a close approximation to the actual exam.

- As I mentioned above, I don’t think that there are any official practice tests but there are two unofficial options: 1. GMetrix, and 2. Test4U.

- GMetrix: The main advantage of using GMetrix is that the layout is exactly the same as on the exam and the exercises they provide are very similar to the tasks you’ll encounter on the exam so you can get used to the exam conditions in advance. On the other hand, there are two big problems. First, it’s $40 which is a bit much if you’re already paying close to $100 for the exam itself (I’d only recommend buying GMetrix if you’re getting a special deal on the exam through your employer/university). Second, the software isn’t well-written and will mark you wrong if your solution isn’t approximately what the programmers envisioned. Instead of buying GMetrix, I’d suggest you watch the solution videos for all three practice exams here on YT (channel Brendan Sinclair). This way you’ll see what kind of exercises you can expect and how to tackle them without having to spend $40.

- Test4U: I only downloaded the trial version but I’d definitely advise against buying Test4U. The software is even worse than GMetrix (will mark you wrong for even minor deviations from the envisioned solution) and the exercises include content that’s not covered in the MOS 2016 Study Guide book or the exam.

- You may or may not have to create an account on Certiport in advance but make sure to check with your assessment center.

- My biggest issue on the exam was the keyboard. There’s nothing you can do about this but be aware that you’ll be using a keyboard you’re not used to and some settings may be a bit different from what you have on your computer, e.g. my assessment center was using “;” instead of “,” for separating arguments in formulas. The best way to tackle this problem is to be well-prepared for the exam so you can lose time dealing with this kind of technical problems.

- Cube functions: unless you’re already familiar with the cube functions I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about them. Be strategic about how you study – it’s not worth spending hours on something very complex if it’s only going to come up in one question, if at all (they didn’t come up on my exam).

This is all I have for now. I hope it helps and good luck!

Ted

[FDibbins]

Thanks for sharing your experience and advice, Im sure many will find it helpful
(I will move it to the "tips" forum)

[optonikon]

It has been a while since I have posted something in this forum.

Unfortunately, personal life has overwhelmed me, and I had to abandon all my posting activity.

I made the time to write this post to share my one experience on the 77-728 certifications, which is rather different from the one mentioned above.

First of all, I passed the exam on the first try.
I tried to use Microsoft’s MOS 2016 Study Guide for Microsoft Excel Expert book by Paul McFedries.

Soon I realized that it wasn’t working for me.
I needed something more real. I was trying to learn a skill that I believe cannot be learned by books or watching video lessons (I also bought a couple of them on Udemy).
I wanted to use all that I read or heard in practice.
I also reached to the conclusion that my only choices where Gmetrix and TEST4U.

I downloaded the TEST4U demo to test it and lucky for me a friend of mine had access to GMetrix (since I couldn’t find a demo edition to test it).
- They both use an interface similar to the one you will find in the exams.
- TEST4U has a lot more questions/tasks to complete than GMetrix and a few of them might be beyond MOS syllabus (that is how they call them) but they are neatly grouped in their own category and you can answer them only if you want to deepen your knowledge of Excel.
I ended up completing them after the MOS exam. They gave me a different perspective on Excel that may have earned me a few extra points in the exam.
- Instead of written instructions on how to solve the exercises TEST4U offers video solutions which personally I prefer.
- Their prices are not the same (TEST4U is cheaper) but they use a different type of charging.
GMetrix charges on tests taken, while TEST4U charges on time spent on the program, so you cannot compare them directly.

As you understood I ended up buying TEST4U at about 25 euros if I remember correctly, for a 15-hour subscription. I still have 1 to spare.
I haven’t used GMetrix for more than 1 hour, so I cannot really say if they mark your solution wrong if you do it with another method.

What I can say for sure is that in TEST4U I did become frustrated sometimes with questions that were marked wrong while I was sure I had solved correctly (but not as the video solution proposed). I even placed a ticket on each one of them. And this is why I will never doubt my decision on buying TEST4U again. These tickets got answered in a matter of hours, with detailed explanations of what my solution was lacking. In one of those cases my solution could also be grade as correct in the MOS exam, but if I tried the same method in the company I currently work, then I would probably load the CPU of my computer to explosive limits.

I hope I did not tire you with my long post (I usually write only a few lines), but I really liked the TEST4U software and believe it was the main reason I succeeded in the exam, so I thought you all deserve another side of the same story.

PS. to TesMosby: The problem you had during your examination was not keyboard related. It was due to the localization settings of the PC in the assessment center. If you took the exam in the US, then their settings were wrong. I am glad you passed the exam and such amateurism from the assessment center did not cost you the certification.

[bowtielearning]

I have recently passed the 77-728 exam and used a number of sources to do so. People have asked about Gmetrix and the
Expert exam. I have used Gmetrix extensively and I would very highly recommend it for those who are studying for the
77-727 exam (Core Excel). The practice exercises are very good and will get you through. However, they are not good enough
for the 77-728 exam. Large chunks of important material has been left out, particularly in relation to Business Intelligence
functions. While you could leave some of this section of the Objective Domain out and still pass, in my view it is a critical
part of the curriculum and deserves attention if you want to consider yourself an expert. Yes - you can be strategic and leave
CUBE functions out but that could be the question that makes the difference between passing and failing.

The best courses on both the 77-727 and 77-728 exams that I have used are those by Dave Murphy on Udemy. Very comprehensive
coverage and very good exam question examples.

The biggest issue with the 77-728 exam is the time allocated. 50 minutes is very tight and you really need to know your stuff if you are
to pass. Experience of the exam is also critical - so do yourself a favour and buy the 'Replay' option from Microsoft which gives you two shots at the
exam with a 24 hour break. That experience is invaluable and costs very little in the difference.

Hope this is useful information!

[JavaBohne]

I passed this year the MOS Outlook 2016 and the MOS PowerPoint 2016 exam and am still happy about it. Now, I wanted to start to prepare myself for the Excel test(s). But this morning, I was upgraded from Microsoft Office 365 - 2016 version to the 2019 version. Well, I don't like the new design. It looks old fashioned and I am not a friend of it.

Anyway, I have a question to the MOS Excel exams 77-727 and 77-728. In order to get finally the MOS Master, is it mandatory to take the 77-727 test before the 77-728 (same for Word)? Or is it okay to only take the two Expert tests (Excel and Word) as well as one other i.e. Outlook in order to get the MOS Master, finally?