In a long Microsoft Word document that contains many meeting notes, you need to find all instances of the words derive, dive, or dave by using the Find and Replace dialog box with wildcards. What is the most efficient wildcard search pattern to use?

Introduction / Context:
Microsoft Word supports wildcard searches in the Find and Replace dialog box, allowing you to search for text patterns rather than only exact words. This is very useful when you want to find several related words that differ by a single character. Certification questions frequently check whether you understand basic wildcard symbols and how to limit search results to meaningful matches rather than unintended words.

Given Data / Assumptions:

The document is large and contains many meeting notes from different departments.
You want to find derive, dive, and dave, all of which share the pattern d?ve.
You are using Word 2010 and the standard Find and Replace dialog box.
The Use wildcards option is available and can be enabled in the dialog.
You want an efficient pattern that matches only the desired words and not many unrelated words.

Concept / Approach:
Word supports the question mark (?) wildcard, which matches exactly one character, and the asterisk (*) wildcard, which matches any number of characters, including zero. The words derive, dive, and dave all start with the letter d, end with the letters ve, and have exactly one letter in between. The pattern d?ve therefore matches all three words, regardless of the middle character. In contrast, patterns that use the asterisk symbol can match a much wider range of words and may produce too many unintended results.

Step-by-Step Solution:
1. Press Ctrl+H in Word 2010 to open the Find and Replace dialog box, and then click the More button to display advanced options. 2. Select the Use wildcards check box, which tells Word to interpret certain characters as pattern symbols instead of literal text. 3. In the Find what box, type d?ve. The letter d will match explicitly, the question mark will match exactly one character, and ve will match the final letters of the word. 4. Click Find Next or Find In Main Document to locate each occurrence of words such as derive, dive, and dave that satisfy the pattern. 5. Confirm that the search returns exactly the words you expect without matching a large number of unrelated words, which proves that d?ve is a precise and efficient pattern in this case.

Verification / Alternative check:
You can test the pattern in a small sample document that contains derive, dive, dave, and extra words like drive, defensive, and device. The pattern d?ve will match drive and dive, but you can further restrict results by using whole word options or additional context if needed. The key point is that d?ve correctly captures words with one character between d and ve.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
The pattern d*ve uses the asterisk wildcard, which matches any number of characters between d and ve, so it will match many additional words such as derive, dative, and descriptive phrases you might not want.
The pattern ?ve will match any three character sequence ending in ve, which is too broad and ignores the initial d that you want to enforce.
The pattern *ve will match any sequence of characters ending in ve, leading to excessive matches that are not limited to the specific group of words of interest.

Common Pitfalls:
Users sometimes rely on the asterisk wildcard for everything, which can cause extremely broad results. Another pitfall is forgetting to enable the Use wildcards option and then wondering why the question mark or asterisk are not treated as wildcards. Learning to pair the right symbolic pattern with the word structure you need is essential for accurate searches in long documents.

Final Answer:
The most efficient wildcard search is to enable Use wildcards and search for d?ve.