Save Yourself from Nasty Tricks on Computer Operator Practical Exam
This is to ALERT you of those unnecessary troubles during practical examination. I wish you should not face these nonsense errors. Be your exam smooth. May you be able to solve all the questions as you’d expected. But, everybody might not be as lucky. Be prepared to face some unusual behavior of your computer and applications. Think and learn how you can overcome the errors and find out the solutions so that you won’t waste time fixing the result of those nasty tricks.
Each candidate expects his/her computer is thoroughly checked and settings reverted to default one before the test begins. The computer you are using at home and that one in exam hall behave similar. But how can you assure? Who knows the person on the same computer in earlier shift has made some evil changes on settings? If he made modifications on options intentionally? After all, it is a competitive exam! He will rise if you are thrashed down!
Here I present a few sample teases and ask you to bring more of them and solutions.
Cursor jumped to bottom of page after I press Enter
‘Is it not their responsibility to fix the computer errors? They must provide us clean and working comptuers’, you might argue. Yes, OK. It will be like that. But what if it is not? What will you do when you are typing in MS Word and press Enter key to change paragraph, the insertion line jumps to the end of page. You don’t need to type at the bottom of page after pressing Enter! Will you set out to call for computer technicians to fix the problem? Its exam, my dear! Nobody is responsible once your time starts.
Go to the Page Setup >> Layout tabs and revert the ‘vertical alignment’ to ‘top’. It is that simple! But it is sufficient to eat up half of the time awarded to you if you don’t know what is causing the unusual behavior.
Throws some garbage paragraph when typing some words
Let me brig another scene at your observation. What if your MS Word inserts one or more garbage paragraphs whenever you type ‘is’ and press spacebar. [Note 'is’ is just an example, it can be any word if set that way] It is hardly noticeable that some extra unnecessary paragraphs are inserted if you are in middle of page.
This can be caused by autocorrect feature in MS Word. Go to Tools >> Autocorrect Options and scroll through the list to find that ‘is’. Delete this entry from list and click OK.
To reproduce this teaser select any paragraph and press Alt+T+A [Tools >> Autocorrect Options], type ‘is’ then press Enter. I hope you won’t set this way to tease another candidate after you.
Cell Pointer Moves Upward When I Press Enter
Or it may be the cell pointer in Excel moves to the left (usual behaviour is right) when pressing Enter or Tab key. These slight changes of settings on Options dialog box can greatly reduce your working speed and you might not be able to complete questions in time. Find what causes it.
Oh My God! The Required Menu Is Lost from Menu Bar
Hold your Alt key and drag any menu out of the menu bar. Did you notice? The menu is gone from where it was. You see, how easy is it to tease you? Now if anybody earlier on that computer has removed some of them, what would you do? Won’t you feel your head will burst?
Right click any menu or toolbar and choose customize. On the resulting dialog box choose the toolbar or menu bar that was modified, then click Reset button. That menu bar or toolbar is reset to default setting.
Similarly, don’t get surprised if the short-cut keys did not worked as it used to. Short-cut keys can be assigned to perform anything very easily and quickly. There might be some evil headed competitors who will try to apply as much nasty trick as they can to stop other candidates score higher marks.
It won’t be possible to least out all possible nasty tricks here. The purpose of this post is to alert you from these type of teasing settings and be prepared to face them if anything the like happened during your exam. See you again in next post. Prepare well!
26 Responses to “Save Yourself from Nasty Tricks on Computer Operator Practical Exam”
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Jim Hub on October 8, 2010
This looks like an ideal nightmare scenario, preparing for months on end and at the last moment everything is ruined at the last scenario. Thank you very much for giving me a heads up on possible problems!
Suresh Khanal on October 9, 2010
In competitive practical tests when same computer lab is shared on different shifts to give exams, some extr-witty-heads might complete devil-works. It might not be that dreadly to get scared and ruined. I intended to make aware with those nasty scenario and indicated the worst scenarios that really happened for some in past years. Better take some larger bullets!
Andrew on October 14, 2010
That is a nightmare scenario but if you have faith you will see that everything will work out…
Jacob Clipton on October 16, 2010
Try to find the easy way of doing study in examination. All the best to all the students.
Mybinc on October 16, 2010
I think it's simple – prepare! Prepare well and these things are fine.
Suresh Khanal on October 20, 2010
Lets hope there won’t be any storms. This alert is for those poor who may fall pray of devi heads!
Kamran on October 18, 2010
Suresh your solutions are excellent. These definitely saved me dear. This is awesome stuff. Thank you.
Neil Maycock on October 18, 2010
Great post. DO people actually sabotage computers for other candidates?
Suresh Khanal on October 20, 2010
We found a few cases last years. Who know which devil dwells in whose head? Better be strong.
indoor water on October 21, 2010
What a nightmare…well the best thing is to focus on what you're doing and just make sure to not panic everytime something goes wrong. Panic might put you off your track and you might end up losing precious time.
Anne on October 22, 2010
This are indeed possiblne scenarios during practical exam. I remebember back in college, I had also a practical exam and well, i did not finish it because the computer I am using crashed. I can't do anything because there are no vacant computer and at the same time, the exam has time duration and it disappeared when the limit was reached. I am so pissed off. Well, that was past and I still have incoming practical exams, this tips will surely help me. thanks for sharing.
Abhi on October 23, 2010
Thanks for the information.it always happens to me coz i am also a computer professional.
General Health Questions on November 1, 2010
I hate it when I accidentally throw some garbage words into a great posting. Bursts my bubble!
Stacy @Top Destinations on November 2, 2010
Yes indeed, I think these are great points you have put across about this scenario. I would not like this to happen to my children who take their exams on a computer. It has happened to me before… I guess we should be wide awaken before we do something on the computer, for these outlined above to occur. Great post , look forward to your latest post Suresh. Great comments by everyone also.
jenna@premier blogging service on November 3, 2010
Exams can be stressful so it's better to be prepared. Reading this article will also help too.
Marc The Sales Techniques Guy on November 3, 2010
you can do everything in the computer so everything is possible.
Boston Tea Party Animal on November 3, 2010
All the people taking these exams seem to be pretty girls. What are the odds?
Truck Auctions on November 4, 2010
apparent situation though! Just to avoid such situations, be sure to check the settings and if there is an assistant available in the exam hall, it is always appreciated to ask them to recheck the system and all other settings so you wont face anything unusual while doing things or writing exam..Good Luck
Mobile Apps Scotland on November 7, 2010
not a great situation. but you have to find what works best for you.
Billiard Supplies on November 10, 2010
I just have to stop by and say that I really hate auto-correct! I really don't see how that may help any student type or write better.
Tom on November 12, 2010
This is really a good guide. The most important thing to remember is to be always careful and be prepared when taking a competitive exam using computers…
dld financial on November 12, 2010
what's funny is that I also have that kind of errors when I use the computer. Just these basic things but I sometimes work hours just to solve these things. Thanks for the info.
Agnes Lee on November 19, 2010
Hi. Agnes Lee here of International Career Development Blog. Can we use your career related articles in our blogsite? We will credit you accordingly.
And also, if you are interested to link exchange we are willing to trade links. You can contact me thru this email: agnes(dot)odusee(at)gmail(dot)com. Good luck and more power. Thanks. (:
Suresh Khanal on November 20, 2010
I won’t worry my contents being used as long as proper credit is awarded. If we are on same niche, i guess the link will work better.
jack@ office 2010 download on March 9, 2011
Prepare well before exam is very important. It’s exactly the thing I did when I was in school. I was scare of any accident during exam. So before exam begins, I always forced myself to check everything.