|| Home ||  Challenge ||

Dr. W. Brett McKenzie, 210 Gabelli School of Business
E-mail: wmckenzie@rwu.edu  
Office Tel: (401) 254-3534

Challenge Exam

Overview

The CIS faculty offer challenge exams for two courses: CIS101, Introduction to Spreadsheets, and CIS102, Computer Applications in business. Details of the coverage for each exam are listed below.

The RWU Undergraduate Catalog lists the procedure for the challenge exams. Local modifications and guidelines follow:
  • You must see Dr. McKenzie in the first week of classes
  • You must score 90% or better
  • The exam is 120 minutes long.
  • The exam is administered on the computers at the Gabelli School of Business.
  • The exam is administered in the second week of classes, usually a Thursday or Friday afternoon.

Perspective

The challenge is designed for those with advanced skills to demonstrate their knowledge. Review the content area below.

Between 2000 and 2004, there have been seven challenges to CIS101 of which four have failed to meet standards. For CIS102 there have been two challenges, both of which met standards.

CIS101
Introduction to
Spreadsheets

Explores the use of spreadsheets to solve common problems. Topics include the Microsoft Windows environment, spreadsheet design with application to modeling, built-in functions, designing macros, exchanging data with other applications, basic statistical analysis and graphical presentation of data. Offered in an interactive hands-on computer classroom.

Content

The exam focuses on the use of spreadsheets in a business context. Consequently, it tests the use of spreadsheets and an understanding of basic business concepts such as cost-volume-profit, discounts, and interest payments.

You should understand the concepts and be able to complete the following operations in Excel:

  • Relative, absolute, and mixed addressing
  • Formula Auditing
  • Visual data analysis and presentation
    • Charting and graphing
    • Knowing appropriate graph type for data (continuous or discrete)
    • Pivot tables
  • Using functions, especially financial functions: PMT, IPMT, PPMT and descriptive statistical functions.
  • Data lists
    • data entry forms
    • Sort, Filter
    • Subtotal
    • Pivot tables
  • Conditional statements & Data tables
    • "If" statements and nested "If"
    • one variable
    • two variable
  • Projection and Conditional analysis
    • Goal seek
    • Solver
    • Scenario manager
  • Business Reports
    • Income statement
    • Breakeven analysis
    • Cost-Volume-Profit analysis
  • Business Implementation
    • Protection
    • Templates
    • Macros

CIS102
Computer Applications in Business

Introduces students to the elements of business conducted via the Web, which is the paradigm of 21st century business transactions. Focused on the development of a database in Access and the design and deployment of a Web site, this course integrates the information management and communications aspects of the digital business environment. Offered in an interactive hands-on computer classroom.  

Content


The exam focuses on the business application of database and web technologies. It includes both conceptual understanding and practical demonstration.

  • Web/HTML
    • importance of separation of presentation and content
    • basic structure of a web page
      • structural tags
      • formating tags
      • attributes
    • imaging
      • creating and display images
      • image formats and purposes
    • client/server model
      • HTTP response/request
      • FTP model
    • function of browsers
  • Databases
    • data definitions
      • data types
      • keys
    • data tables
    • relationships
    • relational integrity
    • queries and SQL
  • Access (create using wizards and also in design view)
    • Create tables
    • Create relationships
    • Create queries
    • Create forms
    • Create reports
  • Interactive Web Pages
    • HTML Forms
    • Scripting
    • Server-side processing
    • Database connectivity