Well.... just got back from stage 2. Not really sure what to make of it, what an epic day!!
Felt it was pretty tough. I think it was obvious that you couldn't be expected to do most of the tasks without making mistakes, I certainly know I made quite a few (particularly annoying when you hit the button, and realise as soon as its too late that you chose the wrong answer
). I guess its just a matter of how many mistakes you make, which makes it quite hard to judge how well you did as there is no indication of what level of performance is required. I don't feel like I made a horrendous mess of any of it, but I'm certainly not feeling confident like I was after stage 1.
For anyone wanting more detail about what it involves:
The day is split into three parts, with a 30min break timetabled mid-morning and an hour for lunch (but generally the tests don't take as long as is timetabled so you get more time between than that).
The first part of the morning is dedicated to the FEAST tests. A good description of this can be found on this website:
FEAST test
NATS use the entire FEAST test, but you don't do the strip management test at this stage (this is done after lunch as explained below).
After the first break you then sit the NATS computer tests. These are pretty old school (the software seems to run in DOS). The first one is called the arrow test: there is an arrow and a ball on the screen, you have to imagine you are standing on the arrow and looking in the direction it is pointing and then say whether or not the ball is to your left or your right. You get about 1-2 secs to answer each question before it dissappears. If you aren't fast enough then you miss out on that question). Later on there is a new arrow which is a different colour, when this arrow is displayed you have to invert the answer (so left is right, right is left etc.)
The second NATS test is a sorting test more or less exactly like the one you do earlier in the day as part of the FEAST tests.
The final NATS test is a collision avoidance test. There are loads of objects flying about the screen and you have to select which objects to remove to stop them from colliding with each other, the fewer objects you remove to solve the problem the more points you get (sounds a lot easier than it is). Later, as an added dimension, you have to answer some fairly nasty maths questions very very quickly (you get a few seconds max for each question) at the same time. If I fail I'm fairly sure this test is why!
After lunch you sit the SDM (Strip Display Management) test, which is the final part of the FEAST tests. This was AWESOME!! I more or less got over the stress of the whole day's testing, forgot about what was at stake, and really enjoyed myself on this. Basically this is a simulation of a section of airspace with a number of waypoints. You have to track aircraft through the airspace and update their flight strips as they go. You also have to keep the flight strips organised based upon a strict set of rules, discard expired flight strips, and try and identify any conflicts (you don't actually have to do anything about the conflicts, just identify them - which is easier said than done when you've got about 20-30 flight strips on the screen at once and are also receiving constant updates from the aircraft regarding position, altitude, ETA to waypoints etc. through your headset and have to keep all the strips fully up to date all the time). Think I did pretty well on this. Not sure if I managed to spot all the conflicts... I didn't get any alarms or warnings so I think that was a good sign.
All in all, quite a fun day, but a lot of hard work. Fingers crossed for the results now. The assessor said she'd try and get them to us within the next week, so time for several days of nervous feet tapping and thumb twiddling!