Kenexa Prove It Test: How To Prepare

The Kenexa Prove It Test is a popular skills assessment test that allows employers to get a hands-on sense of how well a candidate is familiar with Microsoft Office programs.

Most of the time, these tests assess your ability and familiarity with Microsoft’s two most popular programs – Word and Excel.

Kenexa is an IBM company that helps companies by providing them with solutions for talent management, retention and recruitment.

The company works with a variety of organizations and provides them with assessment tests that can be used as part of the hiring process.

In all, Kenexa offers more than 1,500 Prove It tests that are available and taken completely online.

The company allows businesses to pick and choose what skillsets are most important to their particular business and industry, and then test their candidates on them.

Bonus: Get free unlimited access to test practice (for 30 minutes) on our partner website JobTestPrep – Click Here.

In addition to the Prove It Tests on Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, Kenexa also has exams designed to test typing skills, data entry skills and even accounting skills, as well as three general aptitude tests – numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning and logical reasoning.

The Kenexa Prove It Test will ask you a variety of questions that seek to test your skills and abilities on the programs by making you do tasks that could be classified from anywhere as simple to complex.

The idea behind the test is to assess how much skill you have with the program themselves, before the company would provide any training on how they use them in their business.

This test has become so prevalent because companies nowadays don’t want to be burdened with having to train new employees on how to use the programs before they can get into the nitty gritty of training them for the specific job at hand.

In other words, companies want their new hires to be able to hit the ground running with real training and real work as soon as possible, and a lack of familiarity with or skill in using Word or Excel could hamper that process.

The Kenexa Prove It Test will generally ask you to complete a number of basic tasks in both Word and Excel.

Some examples of this would be:

• Create a new workbook or document, or open an existing one
• Format cells in Excel or type in Word to a specific format
• Change the font size and style of text
• Create borders for Excel cells
• Rename a worksheet in Excel, or a document in Word
• Wrap text around an image in Word
• Sort Excel cells by various values
• Add a header or footer to a Word document
• Align text either left, center or right
• Save a document or print a selection

By testing your ability on tasks such as these, a company will be able to judge whether you have at least a base knowledge of the programs.

Depending on the job you are interviewing for, the company could have you complete more advanced tasks if, for example, you will be using Excel in a more advanced capacity at an accounting firm.

Details of the Kenexa Prove It Test

While the exact questions you will be asked on the exam may vary from company to company and industry to industry, the basics of the Kenexa Prove It Test will not.

In general, you will have 14 days to take the exam once it has been assigned and sent to you.

The basic version of the test will take about 15 to 30 minutes to complete, while the tests that are more technical in nature will generally last about 45 to 60 minutes.

The tests themselves are not timed assessments, but that is the average amount of time it should take you to complete.

Once you start the test, you will not be able to skip questions or go back to a previous question on a previous screen to change an answer you gave.

However, the one nice thing about the tests is that you will be able to take the Kenexa Prove It Test as many times as you would like.

So if you feel you didn’t do very well the first time around, you can take it again to improve your skills.

Tips to Prepare for a Kenexa Prove It Test

No matter what type of job and no what the industry, it’ll be important that you have at least a base knowledge of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel if you will be required to take a Kenexa Prove It Test.

These are the two most common Microsoft Office programs that a majority of companies use at least in some capacity.

More general tests such as for data entry or typing won’t require much prep, other than practicing your typing on a general site such as TypingTest.com.

While you can purchase Kenexa PrepPack assessments online, it isn’t required or necessary to do so.

One of the first things you should do is read up on general basics of the Microsoft programs so you can understand what they are and what they were created to do.

In order to do this successfully, you will want to get your hands dirty, so to speak, with the programs.

You’ll want to make sure that you have the programs downloaded to a computer at your home so you can familiarize yourself with what they look like and how different tools do different things.

There are also a variety of training tools you can get online, such as this Beginner’s Guide to Microsoft Word on YouTube, as well as this Beginner’s Guide to Excel on YouTube.

Having the programs on your computer and being able to follow along with you the tutorials will be a huge help in this regard.

If you are taking a more general Kenexa Prove It Test for verbal or numerical reasoning, the most important thing is to read each question carefully and slowly.

Reading the question fast and speeding through the exam will do you no good.

Since the test is not timed, there is no benefit to getting through it quickly; doing so could only cause you to miss and important detail or read something incorrectly (as you will soon see below).

It’s a good idea to have paper and a pencil or pen with you when you are taking these tests, especially if you are taking a numerical reasoning test.

It might also be a good idea to have a calculator nearby, and to be familiar with the functions on the calculator you are planning to use.

There are even YouTube videos, such as this Basic Operation a Scientific Calculator one, that will show you the basic functions.

Keep in mind also that there will often be unnecessary information included in these Kenexa Prove It Tests, especially the verbal reasoning one.

This is done on purpose to assess whether you are able to weed through the unnecessary or irrelevant information to get to end up at what’s actually being asked and, therefore, what’s important in that particular question.

Another way the Prove It Test will attempt to trip you up is by using double negatives for the verbal reasoning.

This is an attempt to confuse you.

So be prepared for this possibility, and read back through the words in the question or scenario multiple times to make sure you understand the scenario and question fully.

Below, we’ll provide a few different sample questions for each type of Kenexa Prove It Test so that you can get a better sense of what you will be asked and, therefore, how you can further prepare and refine your skills before you take the assessment.

Kenexa Prove It Verbal Reasoning Example Question

If you are taking a Kenexa Prove It Verbal Reasoning Test, an example question would be something such as this…

Scenario: Electricity is a common cause of accidental fires in UK homes. Human error, such as leaving cooking appliances on, is the major cause of blame. Extension cords and plug adapters are frequent causes of electrical fires. Other factors are faulty wiring, fraying electrical equipment and loose plugs. To safeguard against electrical fires, appliances must have a British or European safety mark to identify they are fit for use. A Residual Current Device (RCD) can help mitigate the danger of electric shocks by reducing the electrical current in bare wires. Leaving combustible materials near electrical sockets is also particularly dangerous. It is recommended that candles or other naked flames should not be used as a lighting substitute, especially near combustibles due to the high risk of igniting fires.

Statement: Faulty appliances are the major factor for electrical fires.

Answers:

A.) True
B.) False
C.) Cannot Say

The answer in this case would be B.) False. The reasoning is that the scenario text said human error is the major cause of the electrical fires in the UK.

The purpose behind this type of question on this exam is to test if you are able to read, comprehend and remember important facts in a possible real-world scenario.

Kenexa Prove It Numerical Reasoning Example Question

If you are taking a Kenexa Prove It Numerical Reasoning Test, an example question would be something such as this…

Question: Which two channels combined accounted for 50% of the annual revenue?

Answers:

A.) Direct and E-Mail
B.) SEO and Social Media
C.) Paid Search and SEO

The answer in this case would be B.) SEO and Social Media.

To come to this conclusion, you would need to add the total sum of all the revenue in the pie chart above, which would give you 300, half of which is 150.

If you add SEO and Social Media, those two channels would give you 150.

Kenexa Prove It Microsoft Word Example Questions

If you are taking a Kenexa Prove It Microsoft Word Test, some example questions would be something such as this…

Scenario: Some students and teachers attended a recent assembly. The attendance list included students Mark Davidson, Jillian Meyers, Beth Smith, Michael Robertson and Sandra Beckett. The teachers who attended were Linda Braun, Kyle Richards, Jeffrey Zambrowski and Melissa Jordan.

Basic tasks:

1. Sort the names alphabetically in ascending order, combining the teachers and students into one list.
2. Add numbers to the names, keeping the students and teachers in separate lists.
3. Change the page margins to narrow on the document.
4. Change the layout of the teachers list so that there are two columns
5. Create an Annual Style header for the lists.

Advanced tasks:

1. Insert a Bookmark next to the Attendance List, and name it Title.
2. Add the word Forward above the list. Make that word link to the Attendance List title.
3. Change the document settings so that it shows Readability Statistics.
4. Record a macro that applies yellow highlighting to the words. Name the macro Validate and assign a shortcut of Atl+v.
5. Add the developer tab to the ribbon.

As you can see, these tasks will test your basic and advanced knowledge of Microsoft Word by using a basic list of names in two categories and then asking you to perform a number of tasks associated with them.

Kenexa Prove It Microsoft Excel Example Questions

If you are taking a Kenexa Prove It Microsoft Excel Test, some example questions would be something such as this…

Scenario: Before you approach the questions on this test, copy and paste the above table into a blank Excel spreadsheet, making sure that the cell marked A1 is located in the cell marked A1 in the spreadsheet you created.

Basic tasks:

1. Insert a row between Jenna and Lindsay.
2. Set the page orientation to narrow.
3. Set the text alignment to center.
4. Add a column between ID and Position

Advanced tasks:

1. Highlight all cells under seniority that are higher than 18.
2. Under Reference, in cell D5, combine Employee and ID using a function.
3. Add the total of all the Salary cells by using the SUM function, and display the results in the cell below Lindsay’s Salary.

As you can see, these tasks are designed to test your knowledge of some basic and advanced functions that you could be asked to perform on a daily basis in your job using Microsoft Excel.

The Kenexa Prove It Test gives you a basic set of data points, asks you to organize them in a new Excel spreadsheet and then asks you to manipulate the data using different basic and advanced skills.

No matter what Kenexa Prove It Test a company might ask you to perform as part of the interview process for a new job, it’s important that you prepare in advance so that you have the best chance of receiving a good score, which will hopefully land you the job.

Review some of the example questions we have provided above, and work on your general skills in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, in basic verbal reasoning and numerical reasoning and any other skillset you might be tested on.

By doing as much prep work as you can before you are actually asked to take the test, you will be well positioned to succeed.

Need more practice? Try practice tests from JobTestPrep.