MOUS Access 97 Exam Cram

Rating:
Summary: Let's get the facts straight
Review: I just got off the phone from Microsoft. There are 2 Access 97 exams. One for the programmers, exam# 70-069, and one for the MOUS (MS Office user specialist), called Expert Level Access 97. This book is for the less technical, MOUS certification, Expert Level Access 97. No, I didn't read the book, I need an exam cram for exam 70-069. (I was forced to give it stars, but I hope this may end some confusion.)

Rating:
Summary: Let's get the facts straight
Review: I just got off the phone from Microsoft. There are 2 Access 97 exams. One for the programmers, exam# 70-069, and one for the MOUS (MS Office user specialist), called Expert Level Access 97. This book is for the less technical, MOUS certification, Expert Level Access 97. No, I didn't read the book, I need an exam cram for exam 70-069. (I was forced to give it stars, but I hope this may end some confusion.)

Rating:
Summary: MOUS Access 97 Exam Cram
Review: The book was fairly comprehensive and covered 99% of what was on the test. However, you should not rely upon this book to get you through the exam. You should have an excellent working knowledge of Access before attempting the exam, and use this book simply as a review.

Rating:
Summary: MOUS Access 97 Exam Cram
Review: The book was fairly comprehensive and covered 99% of what was on the test. However, you should not rely upon this book to get you through the exam. You should have an excellent working knowledge of Access before attempting the exam, and use this book simply as a review.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother with this one
Review: This book is very difficult to follow. There are errors in the book, which are not all cleared up by going to the author's web site. But without going there, you can't even follow along after a certain point, because some crucial instructions are omitted.

But even more than those kind of errors are errors of omission. Steps that are worded confusingly, steps left out, the lack of progressive sample files (even files needed to practice import/export are left out with a lame excuse). The sample files are pretty much what you end up with when you've finished the book, not interim files that would make it possible to go back and easily review chapters.

For just one specific example of this books shortcomings, there is an Exam Alert that tells you encryption/decryption will fail if user-level security has been established and you don't have correct permissions. Makes it sound like that is something you should know how do adjust, right? Wrong! Permissions are not covered AT ALL in the book. If they are necessary for the test it would be nice if they were in the book. Why warn us otherwise? If you try to encrypt some of the sample files provided, encryption will fail due to read permissions. It would be nice to have the book tell us how to fix that condition.