As I read and understand it, what Fluffy 5 said was 'if you pass'. What he means, surely, is that you can undertake the test before going into the selection process, paying for it yourself in order to determine whether you are likely to pass should you be selected for interview. This will, naturally help you decide whether to spend a lot of money on an IR. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Nothing dodgy at all! In fact, if that is the case, you'd be
not to.