I am doing this certification on my own, but it seems that there is little if any guidance and/or assistance to someone doing this on his/her own. The bulk of the, what I would term “good”, materials to use in preparationare only available to larger institutions and/or organizations who have institutional/organizational accounts with the publishing and distribution companies. I ordered and received some materials, but got only the book and a CD. I soon found out that I could not access the bulk of the supplemental materials that the course/book used because did not have and account and/or user ID (which you get through an account). Bottom line. The program is great but suffers from a lack of good publicity (both with employers and employees) and the inability to get certified, unless you are part of some larger organization/institution that is supporting and/or encouraging this, getting there is extremely difficult and does not provide you with many of the institutional/organizationaldata files, exercises, practice tests, etc. I bought two comany practice tests, from sites approved and/or recommended by MS. One waqs useless and totally unlike the test itself. The other was fairly good. What I have not been able to find are supplemental books with practice exerciess. And, yes, I have taken courses in the entire MS Office suite applications att he local community college. However, these courses were not just geared toward the certification. After taking them, I wanted to prepare myself better. Boy, did I hit stumbling blocks. The MS website also helps very little, to be quite honest. In fact, as I said, they recognized one of the companies from whom I bought practice tests and exercises–and the stuff was useless and unlike the test in most cases.

The informationyou provided above is good, but I cannot fully agree with everything you have written. Been there, done that. I am still not sure what the certification will do for me, unless I go looking for a job in an educaitonal institution.