A nine-week course that takes you from Word fundamentals to a real, industry-recognized Microsoft certification. You’ll build seven portfolio documents inside this curriculum, take timed practice exams on the Knowledge Pillars platform, and sit the official Certiport MO-110 exam in Week 9.
This is a course about becoming a fluent Microsoft Word user — the kind who can sit down with a blank document and produce real, professional work without consulting menus mid-task. The credential at the end is the Microsoft Office Specialist Word Associate certification, exam code MO-110. It’s an industry-recognized credential that shows up on transcripts, résumés, and college applications, and it’s the same exam that working professionals take.
You’ll spend eight weeks learning and building. Each week introduces a slice of Word, has you produce a real document that uses what you just learned, and ends with a check-in. In Week 9 you sit the official exam. By the end you’ll have seven finished portfolio pieces, a study artifact you keep, and the same certification that working adults carry.
An industry-recognized credential demonstrating that you can correctly apply the principal features of Word — creating and editing documents for a variety of purposes and situations including professional reports, multi-column newsletters, résumés, and business correspondence. The exam itself is performance-based: 50 minutes inside a live Word window, completing real tasks against real documents — no multiple choice.
Industry-recognized Performance-based 50 minutes Six objective domainsThe MO-110 exam is organized into six objective domains. The course is built so each week introduces or extends one of these domains, and the weights below tell you how much of the exam each domain accounts for. By the end of Week 7, every sub-objective in every domain has been in your active practice; Week 8 reviews everything together.
The application itself — navigating, formatting pages, setting up headers and footers, printing, exporting to PDF, and inspecting a finished document before sharing.
The text itself. Effects, Format Painter, line and paragraph spacing the right way, built-in styles, multi-column layouts, and section breaks for documents with structure.
Structured data — real tables (not text with tabs), sort and merge cells, repeating header rows, plus numbered, bulleted, and multi-level lists with custom formatting.
Navigable documents. Heading styles that build an automatic Table of Contents, footnotes and endnotes for source attribution, and the update workflow that keeps everything in sync.
Visual storytelling. Pictures, shapes, icons, SmartArt diagrams, and text boxes — with proper positioning, intentional text wrap, and alt text on every object for accessibility.
Documents as teamwork. Comments, tracked changes, accept/reject workflows, locking changes with a password, and inspecting a document before sharing.
The course runs in two units. Unit 1 (Weeks 1–2) — Foundations. Get fluent with the application itself. Unit 2 (Weeks 3–8) — Associate Core. All remaining MO-110 content, one domain per week, ending with the practice-exam consolidation week. Week 9 — Certification. The official MO-110 exam.
Every week (except Week 9) has the same four-part rhythm:
The Word interface, the ribbon, navigation, and saving. First half of Domain 1.
Margins, headers, footers, style sets, page backgrounds, print check, PDF export. Second half of Domain 1.
Text effects, Format Painter, paragraph spacing, character/paragraph styles, columns, section breaks. Domain 2.
Tables three ways, sort, merge cells, repeating headers, multi-level lists, custom number formats. Domain 3.
Heading styles, footnotes and endnotes, auto-generated Table of Contents, update workflow. Domain 4.
Seven object types, picture effects, SmartArt, position, wrap, and alt text on every object. Domain 5.
Comments, Track Changes, accept/reject, Lock Tracking, plus the three Inspectors. Domain 6 + D1 close-out.
No new content. All six domains in review, three active-recall drills, a KP practice exam, and the 1:1 readiness conference.
The official Certiport Microsoft Word Associate exam. 50 minutes, performance-based, inside a live Word window. Performance, not preparation — the work is done.
The course pairs two complementary learning systems. The curriculum (this set of weekly chunks) is where you learn each skill, practice it in short diagnostics, and apply it on a real project. The Knowledge Pillars practice exams are where you experience the timed simulation the real MO-110 will feel like. Both matter; they work together.
Every week’s work happens inside this curriculum — Lesson, Practice, Build, Wrap Up. The output is real documents.
Knowledge Pillars (KP) is a separate platform where you take timed, full-length practice exams that simulate the real MO-110.
This course is built on the assumption that you’ll do real work, every week. The work is doable — most weeks run about 8 hours total, split across the four chunks — but it’s not optional. Here’s what success looks like:
Week 1 starts at the very beginning — opening Word, naming the parts of the ribbon, navigating the page. No prior Word experience is assumed. The pace is built for students who are starting from zero.
Almost every student who thinks they “already know Word” discovers they’ve been faking certain features — using spaces instead of tabs, double-Enter instead of paragraph spacing, manual numbering instead of multi-level lists. The course teaches the right way to do things, which is what the exam tests. Even experienced users typically learn something new every week.
The desktop version of Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365 Apps) is required because the MO-110 exam tests features that aren’t available in Word for the web. Your school provides access during class time. Ask your teacher if you need at-home access — most schools have an account-sharing program.
The Week 9 official exam is delayed by one week and you and your teacher build a targeted remediation plan — focused on the specific domain(s) you missed. Most students who miss the 80% bar on the first practice attempt clear it on the next attempt. A one-week delay is not a failure — it’s the system working as designed.
The Certiport voucher system typically includes a retake. Speak with your teacher right away — there’s usually a structured retake path with additional remediation. Few students reach Week 9 without being authorized to sit, but if you do sit and fall short, the path forward is straightforward.
The Microsoft Word Expert certification (MO-111). It covers advanced features that the Associate exam doesn’t — templates, document security, advanced editing tools, macros, mail merge, and granular content controls. If your school offers MO-111, it’s typically the natural next course after this one.
Yes. Microsoft Office Specialist is a globally recognized industry credential maintained by Microsoft and delivered by Certiport (a Pearson VUE company). The same MO-110 exam is taken by working adults in corporate certification programs. It carries the same weight whether earned in high school, college, or as part of professional development.
Tell your teacher in Week 1. Standard accommodations carry over — extended time on Wrap Up quizzes and KP practice exams, larger screenshots in lesson guides, chunked task sheets, keyboard-shortcut alternatives to mouse sequences. The Certiport exam itself also has its own accommodation request process; your teacher will help you navigate it before Week 9.
Your first stop is Week 1 — Orientation. Read the Week 1 Lesson first; it sets up everything else. Then work through the four chunks in order. By the end of the week, you’ll have your first portfolio piece in hand and a working sense of how the course will run.
The certification you’ll earn in Week 9 is real. The work to get there is doable. The portfolio you’ll build will travel with you well past this class. Show up, do the work each week, ask when you’re stuck — and the result takes care of itself.
