Hi,
Long time lurker and who has only recently signed up and like many before me I thought I'd pop in and say hello as I become the latest in a long line of hopeful NATS ATCO applicants! I've currently passed Stage 0 and Stage 1 and I am now looking for a suitable date to arrange Stage 2 at Fareham.
Air Traffic Control has always been something that appealed to me although strangely I find it difficult to quantify the reasons why. I am currently a mature student (31) who is in the last year of my degree so it has been a little difficult to undertake the application process so that I can give it the attention I feel it needs which is why I have already passed on a few days that were showing as available for Stage 2, with essay deadlines falling far too close to allow me to fully concentrate on studying the ATC manual and brush up on some preparatory work.
For those interested I would actually say that Stage 0 & 1 were more problematic than I had anticipated and for different reasons. In Stage 0 I found the Numerical & Verbal reasoning sections pretty straight forward with the verbal reasoning maybe pushing me to the time limit due to the extent of text in each section.
The numerical I found relatively easy although I knew I got one of the last ones wrong but generally I finished those sections in good time and confident in my performance. The Error Checking section however I ran out of time with those questions and iirc failed to answer the last 2/3 as I had to go back to my last answered question to change the answer and quickly ran out of time.
I know from reading the forum this is a section that people say they found easy but I had difficulty with the logistics in trying to determine the answers here. I honestly thought I had already failed at this point which was worrying as a huge part of my job is similar in nature to the error checking section but I was relieved to find out later the same day I had passed and progressed onto Stage 1.
I left Stage 1 to the last day of the 10 day limit as I was too busy to give it my full attention before this although I was fairly confident in this section as I have undertaken these types of test before. These of course entailed the Spatial Awareness and Diagrammatic Reasoning elements. I would say I found the Spatial test pretty straight forward and something that I am pretty good at off the bat whether through innateness or learned understanding from my previous jobs I think maybe only one or two of the questions had me sweating.
The Diagrammatic Reasoning however had me once again thinking I had failed as this was a test that got progressively more difficult particularly in the last few tested sections where I was sure I had got more wrong than I was expecting and resorted to best guessing. I suspect up to those last ones I had done pretty well over the previous majority of questions and was pleased to find out later that day I had passed Stage 1 and was to book onto Stage 2 down south. I will say of Stage 1, it is pretty relentless if you are undertaking these tests with no break between each leg of questions so you definitely feel the pressure, so I would advise that you get ready for 10-15 minutes of constant concentration that is needed for the Spatial and Diagrammatic test sections.
Anyway I'm going to continue to swot up on as much information as I can gather from here and elsewhere on Stage 2 requirements which includes FEAST and DART elements as I am confident in the questionnaire section relating to the provided manual given sufficient study time. If anyone has any pointers or can offer further help regarding Stage 2 prep it would be much appreciated.