Every formula entered in an MS Excel cell must begin with which of the following characters?

The correct answer is D, Shift + Space. Pressing Shift together with the spacebar selects the whole row that holds the active cell, from column A right across to the last column of the grid. The row number on the left turns highlighted, and any formatting, deletion or height change you apply next affects the entire row.

Option A, Ctrl + Shift + Space, selects the whole worksheet, which is the same thing Ctrl + A does when the active cell stands outside a data range. Option B, Ctrl + Home, does not select anything at all; it only moves the cursor back to cell A1 from wherever it happens to be. Option C, Ctrl + Space, is the companion of the right answer and selects the whole column instead of the whole row, which is exactly the swap the paper setter is hoping for. Remember the pair together: Shift for the row, Ctrl for the column.

The correct answer is A, Title bar. The title bar is the strip along the very top of the Excel window, and it carries the name of the open workbook followed by the name of the program, for example Book1 - Excel. The minimise, maximise and close buttons sit at its right end, and the Quick Access Toolbar at its left.

Option B, the tool bar, holds command buttons rather than names; in Excel 2007 and later it survives only as the small Quick Access Toolbar. Option C, the task bar, belongs to the Windows operating system and not to Excel; it runs along the bottom of the screen and shows the Start button and the programs that are open. Option D, the menu bar, was the row of word menus of Excel 2003 and earlier, replaced by the ribbon from Excel 2007; it listed commands such as File and Edit, never the file name. The cell address, by contrast, is shown in the Name Box beside the formula bar.

The correct answer is C, Text. LEN returns the number of characters in an entry, counting letters, digits, punctuation and spaces alike, so =LEN("Excel") gives 5. Because it works on text rather than on values, Excel files it under the Text category of the Formulas tab, along with LEFT, RIGHT, MID, UPPER, LOWER, TRIM and CONCATENATE.

Option A, Financial, holds the money functions such as PMT, RATE, NPV and FV, which work out instalments, interest rates and present values. Option B, Logical, holds IF, AND, OR, NOT and IFERROR, the functions that test a condition and return one result or another. Option D, Math and Trig, holds SUM, ROUND, ABS, SQRT, POWER and MOD, which calculate on numbers. LEN does return a number, and that is the trap that pulls candidates towards D, but a function is classified by what it works on, and LEN works on text.

The correct answer is C, Microsoft Excel. An electronic spreadsheet stores data in a grid of rows and columns and recalculates its formulas whenever a value changes, and Excel is the spreadsheet program of the Microsoft Office suite. Its files carry the .xlsx extension from Excel 2007 onwards.

Option A, Microsoft Word, is a word processor, used to type, edit and format text documents that are saved with the .docx extension. Option B, Microsoft PowerPoint, is presentation software, used to build slides for a talk and saved with the .pptx extension. Option D, Microsoft Access, is the database management program of the suite; it also shows tables in a grid, which makes it the strongest distractor, but a database stores records in related tables and is queried, while a spreadsheet calculates cell by cell. Remember the pairing of the four programs with their jobs and this whole family of questions becomes easy.

The correct answer is D, Ctrl + F2. Ctrl together with F2 opens the print area of the Backstage view in Excel, Word and PowerPoint, where the page is shown exactly as it will be printed and the printer, copies, orientation and margins can be set. In Office 2003 and earlier the same combination opened the older Print Preview window.

Option A, Alt + Ctrl + F2, opens a file rather than previewing one, working like Ctrl + O. Option B, Alt + F2, was the Save As shortcut of very old Office versions and does nothing useful today; the modern Save As key is F12. Option C, Shift + F2, adds or edits a comment on the active cell in Excel, which is a completely different job. Learning the F2 family together helps: F2 alone edits the active cell, Shift + F2 handles a comment, Ctrl + F2 previews the print, and Alt + equals inserts a SUM.