Skip to ContentGo to accessibility page

Practice Exercises

18 .
Watch the TED Talk “Mosquitos, malaria, and education” from Bill Gates. What makes the presentation engaging? Create a couple of slides that could have been used during the presentation.
19 .
Review the Section508.gov presentations training videos that provide tips for making presentations accessible to all audiences. Using a slide presentation that you have created or one that you find online, make some suggestions for improving the accessibility of the slides based on the information on the site.
20 .
Dananjaya Hettiarachchi was the 2014 World Champion of Public Speaking. Review Hettiarachchi’s full speech on YouTube. As you listen and view, identify three skills from the chapter that were used by the speaker. Explain how the skill was used, and comment on its effectiveness.
21 .
Create a “Background” slide for yourself that includes information such as your hometown, your college, and a couple of fun facts about yourself. Include a picture that is meaningful to you. Choose a theme for the slide, and use the Designer tool to select an engaging design. Crop the image you include into the shape of a star, and adjust the transparency of the image.
22 .
Design a custom color template for a presentation to highlight your company’s annual picnic. Include an appropriate picture and remove the background of the image. Explain the use of your color choices in a text box on the slide.
23 .
Design a slide to share three “lessons learned,” or takeaways, from this chapter using a SmartArt design of your choice. Find an image that relates to the topic, and make it the slide background, and apply 75 percent transparency.
24 .
Using the Rehearse with Coach tool, rehearse the My Life in a Snapshot presentation that you have created over the last two chapters. What information did you get from the tool? Was it helpful?
25 .
Imagine that you are preparing for a presentation at either your work or school. Choose a space to explore for presentation readiness and actually go visit it. Prepare a slide to describe the chosen location, the readiness of the space, the features that support your presentation, and steps to take to ensure optimal preparedness.
26 .
Design a few slides to teach your audience how to complete a simple task of your choice. Find a video that supports it and embed it within the slide. Include a transition to appear after the video ends to pop up a summarized statement.
27 .
Add another transition to your My Life in a Snapshot Slides presentation. Which transition did you choose and why? Make sure to apply the transition to at least three slides and adjust the speed if desired.
28 .
Add comments to two slides in your My Life in a Snapshot Slides presentation. Verbally add speaker notes to help you during the presentation. Last, run spell check on the presentation. Did you find any errors?
29 .
Add sound to your My Life in a Snapshot Slides presentation. First, make or find an audio recording in MP3 or WAV format. Save the file to your computer and remember where you saved it. Play the recording within your presentation by clicking on the audio icon. Did the sound enhance the presentation? Did you modify it to make it better?
Citation/Attribution
Reuse and redistribution of this content in digital or print format:
  • This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's prior written permission.
  • This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, which means that you can reuse and modify the material only for noncommercial purposes, must attribute OpenStax, and must distribute any derivative works under the same license.
  • Any commercial printing of this textbook, including using a local or custom printer, must be approved by OpenStax, and proper citation provided.
  • OpenStax-copyrighted images, activities, assessments, and similar components of this book are subject to the same licensing – CC-BY-NC-SA. They can be used for noncommercial purposes with attribution. Commercial use requires permission.
  • Permission requests: Anyone who intends to incorporate this content (including text, images, and other components) into large language models, use it in AI offerings, use it commercially (including in print), and/or has questions about another use case is welcome to complete our reuse request form.
Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a noncommercial print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:

    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/workplace-software-skills/pages/1-chapter-scenario

  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a noncommercial digital format, then for every page that includes OpenStax content, you must license the derivative work under the same CC-BY-NC-SA license as the original, and include on every digital page view the following attribution:

    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/workplace-software-skills/pages/1-chapter-scenario

Citation information

The information below includes the information needed to generate citations in most major styles (APA, MLA, etc.); you must reformat and organize the information as needed to fit the requirements of the style. Use the information below to generate a citation. We recommend using a citation tool such as this one.

© Apr 23, 2026 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo, and Rice University name, and Rice University logo trademarks, or wordmarks are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.