Computer Applications, Office Productivity and Multimedia
What the exam tests
Computer Applications, Office Productivity and Multimedia tests word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, multimedia elements and file formats. Practical questions ask for formulas, formatting features and suitable formats.
Core rules
- Word processing: styles, headers/footers, page setup, tables, mail merge, track changes, spell check and PDF export.
- Spreadsheet: cells are addressed by column and row (B3). Formulas begin with = and use operators + − * /. Functions include SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MAX, MIN, IF and VLOOKUP.
- Relative references (A1) change when copied; absolute references ($A$1) do not; mixed references lock only row or column.
- Presentation: slide master, layouts, transitions and animations. Transitions apply between slides; animations apply to objects.
- Multimedia combines text, graphics, audio, video and animation. Raster images (JPEG, PNG) use pixels; vector images (SVG) use paths and scale cleanly.
- Lossy compression (JPEG, MP3) discards data; lossless (PNG, ZIP) preserves it. MP4 is a common video container.
Worked example
In a spreadsheet, marks are in B2:B6. =SUM(B2:B6) adds them; =AVERAGE(B2:B6) divides by the count of numeric cells. If B2 contains 60, B3 70, B4 80, B5 50 and B6 40, SUM returns 300 and AVERAGE returns 60. Copying =B2*2 from C2 to C3 changes the reference to B3 because it is relative.
Traps
A formula without = is treated as text. AVERAGE ignores blank cells but counts zeros. $A1 locks the column only; A$1 locks the row only. Do not use JPEG for line art or text that must stay crisp. Animations are not transitions. Mail merge needs a main document and a data source.