Keyboard Shortcuts and File Extensions: Full Lists and PYQs

The correct answer is A, .BAT. A batch file is a plain text file containing a series of commands that the operating system carries out one after another without any further instruction from the user, and it is saved with the extension .bat. Such files were the standard way of automating routine work on DOS and on early versions of Windows, the best known of them being autoexec.bat. Option B is wrong because .batch is not a registered extension; classic extensions were limited to three characters and the shortened form is the one that survives. Option C is wrong because .bch is not used for this purpose at all. Option D is wrong because .cth is not a standard file extension in Windows. Remember .bat along with .exe and .com as the three files that can run by themselves.

The correct answer is C, Shift + Enter. A manual line break, also called a soft return, moves the text to the next line while keeping it inside the same paragraph, so the spacing before and after the paragraph and the list numbering are not disturbed. It is the right way to break an address or a line of verse. Option A is wrong because Ctrl + Enter inserts a page break and throws the text on to a new page, which is a much bigger jump than a line break. Option B is wrong because Alt + Enter has no line break function in MS Word, although in MS Excel it does start a new line inside a cell, which is where the confusion comes from. Option D is wrong because Space + Enter is not a recognised key combination at all.

The correct answer is C, the first statement is true and the second false. When a new document is created in MS Word, the program offers a blank document as well as a gallery of templates for letters, resumes and reports, so statement one is correct. Statement two is wrong because Shift + End selects the text from the cursor to the end of the current line; the shortcut that takes the cursor to the end of the whole document is Ctrl + End. Option A is wrong because it denies the true statement about templates. Option B is wrong because it accepts the incorrect shortcut. Option D reverses both judgements and is therefore wrong twice over. In statement based questions of this kind, test each statement separately and only then look at the options.

The correct answer is B, Ctrl + Z. This combination reverses the last action, whether it was typing, deleting, formatting or moving, and pressing it again walks further back through the list of recent actions. Option A is wrong because Ctrl + U applies underline to the selected text in a word processor. Option C is wrong because Ctrl + Y does the opposite of undo: it redoes the action that was just undone, and the pair Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y is usually asked together. Option D is wrong because Ctrl + X cuts the selection and places it on the clipboard, from where Ctrl + V pastes it. The four combinations Ctrl + C, Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V and Ctrl + Z form the core of every computer awareness paper and should be answered without a moment of thought.

The correct answer is B, F2. Selecting a file or folder in Windows and pressing F2 makes its name editable at once, without going through the right click menu. The same key has a second well known use: in MS Excel it puts the active cell into edit mode so that its contents can be changed in the cell itself. Option A is wrong because F1 opens the help window of whichever program is running. Option C is wrong because F5 refreshes a window or reloads a web page, and in MS PowerPoint it starts the slide show from the first slide. Option D is wrong because F7 runs the spelling and grammar check in MS Word. The function keys are pure memory work, and F1, F2, F5, F7 and F12 are the five that appear most often.

The correct answer is C, .pptx. From the 2007 version onwards, MS Office moved to an XML based format in which every main program received an extension ending in the letter x, and a PowerPoint presentation became .pptx, the older format being .ppt. Option A is wrong because .docx belongs to an MS Word document. Option B is wrong because .xlsx belongs to an MS Excel workbook, the older form of which is .xls. Option D is wrong because there is no extension .mdbx; the old Microsoft Access database used .mdb and the newer one uses .accdb. A quick way to hold this set together is to remember the three pairs .doc and .docx, .xls and .xlsx, .ppt and .pptx, which cover most of the questions asked from Office extensions.

The correct answer is A, Alt + F4. This combination closes the window or program that is active at the moment, and when it is pressed on the desktop with no program open it brings up the box that shuts down or restarts the computer. Option B is wrong because Ctrl + F4 closes only the current document or tab inside a program while the program itself stays open, a smaller action that is often used as a distractor beside Alt + F4. Option C is wrong because Alt + Tab does not close anything; it switches between the windows that are already open. Option D is wrong because Ctrl + Esc opens the Start menu, the same work that the Windows key does on its own. Read the question carefully to see whether it asks about the window or the document.

The correct answer is B, .rar. A file with the extension .rar is an archive in which one or more files have been packed and compressed so that they take less space and can be sent as a single unit; .zip, .7z and .tar do the same work. Option A is wrong because .png, the portable network graphics format, is an image file that supports a transparent background. Option C is wrong because .wav is an uncompressed audio format developed for Windows, generally larger in size than an .mp3 file of the same recording. Option D is wrong because .ttf is a TrueType font file, which supplies the shapes of letters to the operating system. Questions of the odd one out kind are common here, so learn the extensions in groups by the type of file rather than one by one.

The correct answer is B, Ctrl + Home. Holding Ctrl while pressing Home carries the cursor right to the top of the document, no matter how many pages have been typed, and Ctrl + End does the same to the bottom. In MS Excel the same combination returns to cell A1. Option A is wrong because the Home key alone takes the cursor only to the beginning of the line it is sitting on. Option C is wrong because Shift + Home selects text from the cursor back to the start of that line, since Shift is the selection modifier. Option D is wrong because Alt + Home has no such role in MS Word, though in a web browser it opens the home page. The pattern worth remembering is that Ctrl widens a movement to the whole document and Shift turns a movement into a selection.

The correct answer is B, a dot. The part of the name after the last dot is the extension, so in the name result.docx the extension is docx and the operating system uses it to decide which program will open the file and which icon will be shown. Option A is wrong because a hyphen is only an ordinary character in a name and separates nothing for the system. Option C is wrong because the slash separates folders in a path, such as the backslash used in Windows paths, and it cannot be used inside a file name at all. Option D is wrong because the underscore is used in place of a space in file names but carries no special meaning. Note also that renaming a file to a different extension does not change what is inside it.

The correct answer is A, Ctrl + Shift + Esc. This combination opens Task Manager at once, the window that lists running programs and background processes and allows a program that has stopped responding to be ended. The older route, Ctrl + Alt + Delete, now opens a security screen from which Task Manager has to be chosen, so the direct shortcut saves a step. Option B is wrong because Ctrl + Shift + T reopens the browser tab that was closed last. Option C is wrong because Alt + Shift + Esc is not a standard Windows shortcut. Option D is wrong because Ctrl + Alt + T opens a terminal window on Linux systems, not Task Manager on Windows. Keep Ctrl + Alt + Delete and Ctrl + Shift + Esc apart, since papers set them against each other.

The correct answer is C, .exe. A file ending in .exe is an executable, which means it contains instructions the processor can run, so double clicking it starts a program. For the same reason an .exe file received from an unknown sender is the commonest carrier of a virus, and .com and .bat files behave in the same way. Option A is wrong because a .txt file holds plain text with no formatting and opens in a simple editor such as Notepad. Option B is wrong because .jpg is a compressed image format widely used for photographs. Option D is wrong because .csv holds comma separated values, a plain text table that spreadsheet programs read and write when data has to move between different software. Group the extensions by behaviour and this question answers itself.