The compound light microscope is most useful for viewing
detailed structures inside of cells
leaves, stems, and molds
surface details of a specimen
tissue samples and cells

The correct answer is tissue samples and cells. 

The compound light microscope's main feature is the light source, so it is considered a bright field microscope.  Invented back in 1595 by Zacharias Jansen, this type of microscope is still the most widely used type of microscope because of its price, but also because of its convenience with viewing bacteria colonies, browsing their movement, analyzing tissue samples, counting and analyzing the content acquired from smears, analyzing cells in a blood sample etc. Its magnifying power is from 4x to 4000x. Other structures which require larger magnifying power, are analyzed with an electron microscope.