In MS Access, the field that uniquely identifies each record in a table is called the ______.

The correct answer is B, MS Access. Access stores data in separate tables that are joined to one another through keys, which is what makes it relational, and it provides tables, queries, forms, reports, macros and modules to work with that data. It ships with the professional editions of Office. Option A, MS Excel, is a spreadsheet; it arranges data in a single grid of rows and columns and can sort, filter and calculate, but it has no concept of a relationship between tables and is not a database management system. Option C, MS Publisher, is a desktop publishing program for brochures, cards and newsletters. Option D, MS OneNote, is a digital notebook for loose notes, clippings and sketches. Papers often set Excel against Access on purpose, so remember the dividing line: a spreadsheet keeps one table, a database keeps many tables and the links between them.

The correct answer is B, .accdb. From Access 2007 onwards, the default database format changed and files are saved with the extension .accdb, which stands for Access database and supports features such as multivalued fields and attachment data types. Option A, .mdb, was the extension of the earlier format used up to Access 2003; it can still be opened for compatibility, which is why it is the favourite distractor in this question. Option C, .adb, is not an Access format at all. Option D, .dbf, is the old dBase file format, used by dBase, FoxPro and several statistical packages, and it can be imported into Access but is not written by it. The pattern to notice is that Office 2007 added a letter to the extensions of the whole suite, giving .docx for Word, .xlsx for Excel, .pptx for PowerPoint and .accdb for Access.

The correct answer is C, Bcc. Bcc stands for blind carbon copy. Everyone listed in Bcc receives the message, but their addresses are hidden from the people in the To and Cc fields and from one another, which is why it is used for circulars sent to a long list. Option A, the To field, carries the main recipients and their addresses are visible to all. Option B, Cc, stands for carbon copy and sends a visible copy to people who should be kept informed; every recipient can see those addresses. Option D, Reply To, is not an address field for sending a copy; it is a setting that tells the recipient's program which address a reply should go to. A connected fact asked often is that a message waiting to be sent sits in the Outbox and moves to Sent Items once it has left the computer.

The correct answer is A, .pst. The letters stand for personal storage table, and this single file holds the messages, calendar entries, contacts, tasks and notes of an Outlook account on the computer, which is why backing up the .pst file backs up the whole mailbox. A related file, with the extension .ost, is the offline cached copy of a mailbox that lives on a server, and one message saved on its own takes the extension .msg. Option B, .ppt, is the old PowerPoint presentation format. Option C, .pdf, is the portable document format of Adobe, used for fixed-layout documents that look the same everywhere. Option D, .pub, is the file format of MS Publisher. Keep the three Outlook extensions together in memory, since questions move between .pst, .ost and .msg from one paper to the next.

The correct answer is C, SMTP. SMTP, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is the protocol that carries a message out of the sender's program and between mail servers until it reaches the recipient's mailbox. Option A, POP3, the Post Office Protocol version 3, is a receiving protocol: it downloads messages to one device and by default removes them from the server. Option B, IMAP, the Internet Message Access Protocol, is the other receiving protocol and it keeps messages on the server so that a phone and a computer show the same mailbox with the same read and unread marks. Option D, FTP, the File Transfer Protocol, moves files between a client and a server and has nothing to do with mail. The one-line rule for the exam hall is that SMTP sends while POP3 and IMAP receive, and that IMAP is the one that synchronises across devices.