In order to graduate from New Hartford Senior High School, all students must earn a half-credit for Computer Applications or demonstrate proficiency in computer application skills.
Proficiency is demonstrated by successfully doing a majority of tasks in each section described below. Students who demonstrate proficiency by passing the exam do not receive course credit. Students enrolled in the course at any time are not eligible to take the proficiency exam.
The proficiency test is offered each year during exam week in January and June. Students may take the exam once. Students have 3 hours to complete the tasks outlined below and have the choice to complete the tasks using either G Suite for Education, Microsoft Office, or Apple’s iWork tools. Interested students must complete and submit the Computer Applications Proficiency Exam Application, which is also available in the Counseling Office.
Basic Skills
- Logging onto school network, local & cloud-based accounts
- Save/upload files to specific locations (i.e. – cloud, server account and/or folder on local hard drive)
- Download files from specific locations (i.e. – cloud, server account and/or folder on local hard drive)
- Create folders on cloud, server account and/or folder on local hard drive
- Access files from shared online drive
General Word Processing
- Document save, close and editing techniques
- Paragraph alignment and spacing commands
- Using headers and footers
- Presenting information in table format
- Table formatting techniques
- Access files from school network
- Find & replace command
- Full block or modified block letter formatting
Report Formatting (MLA Format)
- Title page
- Headers and footers
- Formatting page number and name
- Formatting internal citations
- Page break
- Work cited formatting
PowerPoint
- Understanding & switching views
- Promote & demote points
- Creating new slides
- Applying slide design
- Applying transitions
- Sorting slides
- Inserting graphics
- Custom animating graphics
- Printing slides (2 slides per page)
Spreadsheet and Charting
- Spreadsheet creation
- Cell reference formulas
- Range functions: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, IF, PRODUCT
- Spreadsheet formatting (font, font size, alignment, cell shading, formatting, merge & center)
- Chart creation from spreadsheet data
- Chart formatting basics (fonts, font sizes)
- Adjusting chart number formats, axis labels, and tick marks
- Printing spreadsheet data, charts and formulas
Digital Citizenship Awareness Activity
- You are required to complete a Digital Citizenship Activity as part of the Proficiency Exam.
- You will be given information if your application is approved.
- You may complete this activity prior to taking the test or as part of the testing time.
Computer Science Project
- You are required to develop a mobile app.
- You will be given specific information and rubric for this project if your application is approved.
- You MUST share your app by the last day of classes in the semester you are registered to sit for the exam.
- If you do not submit the app by the deadline you will NOT be able to sit for the exam.