This book is targeted at those currently studying A level IT, the book aims to help students produce a better piece of coursework using Excel. As an A level student myself I have used this book a lot. The book is about 200 pages long and strikes a good balance between keeping it simple and giving enough information to the reader. The book starts with entering data and performing simple calculations, it gradually gets more advanced and finishes with macros. Part 4 is devoted to tackling the project and is very useful in showing how to use Word to write up the project report and how to generate an automatic table of contents. The two appendices are good, the first is a sample project which can be used as a guideline when writing your own report. The second is a mark scheme, this is really a bit too technical and could do with being translated into 'plain English'. Overall this book is good but is lacking in some areas. Firstly the book tends to waffle in some places, and secondly the book uses bold type to show menus, buttons, important phrases and anything else that needs emphasis. A lot of the professional books are easier to follow as they use different formatting to represent things you type or click etc. This book is good but could do with being made clearer at times.
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Aug 5th, 2000
