WGW
17th Dec 2000, 21:04
Well, here's another up-to-date summary of the goings on at Cranebank for the BA aptitude tests. Most has been said before, think there have been a few subtle changes. Hope this helps. Also search the archive for 'WWW's big CEP Posting' and read the relevant bits at the 'Wannabees/Gonnabees' menu option.
You have to get to the test centre (The Rivers, Cranebank) for 9.30am. They tell you there's no parking, but there is in fact a free multi-storey staff car-park nearby, no questions asked. You turn right off the dual carriageway after Waggoners Roundabout heading from M4 J3, following the sign to Cranebank, BA Training Centre. Bear left, still following the signs. Rivers is straight on, but take the first right, then turn right into the car park just before the security checkpoint and help yourself to a space. When I got there at 8.45 there were plenty. Retrace your steps to find signs to the Rivers again.
You get to help yourself to coffee and watch News 24 in a very posh wine-bar type reception area. You get called at around 10am to start the tests. These run something like this:
* Psychometric test - 300 questions in around 40 mins, though there's no real time limit. The idea is you answer quick so you can't lie. There are loads of questions like 'I fall asleep all the time', 'There are days I feel like doing nothing at all'. Suggest you answer 'False' to these. Also try not to come across as racist, unsociable or a compulsive gambler; paying taxes is good, taking drugs is bad, etc. As to 'I would be interested in seeing a film about the life of the otter', take a chance: I said 'True'. Maybe that's what they select on and ignore the rest of the day's results...
You then get split into two groups, one to do the the written tests, one to do the Micropat (Microcomputer Pilot Aptitude Test). Groups swap over after lunch.
* Written tests:
Mathematics - 12 mins to do 30 questions. Different to how it used to be when there was no chance you'd finish them all - you should have time to do all of them. Some are harder than others, so come back to them. Make sure you get the questions in the right answer boxes if you skip a couple - the question numbers are in yellow on shiny white paper, so you can barely read them: be careful. All A-E multiple choice - calculate the area of this shape, what's the average price of these three quotes, etc. For practice, download the 'GMAT Test Prep' from <A HREF="http://www.petersons.com" TARGET="_blank">www.petersons.com</A> and try sections 2 and 5. Also <A HREF="http://www.shldirect.com." TARGET="_blank">www.shldirect.com.</A> Plenty of books and stuff around too. Also brush up on your mental arithmetic, long division, tables etc.
Verbal Reasoning - 25 mins to do around 40 questions. Again, you should have time to finish them all. A number of passages, each with four statements to which you have to answer 'True', 'False', 'Can't say'. Remember it's based on the what's in the passage, not your opinions. If something's implied but not stated, then 'Can't say'. If somethings predicted next year, and the statement says someting will happen, then 'Can't say'. The whole thing's ambiguous and very horrible. At least with the maths you know roughly how you're doing, with this you just don't know. If I failed on anyhing, it's this. Not much you can do to practice, though you could try <A HREF="http://www.shldirect.com," TARGET="_blank">www.shldirect.com,</A> just concentrate very hard and watch out for what I just mentioned.
* Nice buffet lunch slots in here, and a chance to ask a few questions. Aptitude tests are one a week all year at the moment, 20 at each, so around 1000 people per year get to this stage. Around 6 to 8 training courses start each year with maybe ten to 12 cadets on each (they were a bit cryptic here), so you can work out your odds of getting through if you've been invited to aptitudes (1 in 10 if the best cases are true). Training lasts around 18 months: Oxford + Florida or Milwaukee + Buffalo Creek. Accomodation provided plus £30 per week pocket money. (Better get that mortgage and car loan paid off now. And save up a few grand. Just be glad you're not paying for the training too.)
* Micropat: (think these are in order, pretty sure I've remembered all of them)
If you get the chance, grab a glass (or two) of water beforehand and take it in with you. All tests are carried out sat in front of an ancient (286?) IBM PC with a joystick, rudder pedals under the table, plus a numerical keypad with a few extra keys on it. Tests are stressful - two mins feels like forever. There's no time limit between the tests, so sit back, take some deep breaths and sip that water. There's nothing you can do to practice, just give it your best shot on the day. Maybe take some paracetamol for after. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif And some Right Guard.
Keep the square between the two lines - The computer moves a short pair of lines (maybe an inch long) back and forth on the screen following a sine wave of varying amplitude. You have to keep a little square between them with a joystick, left and right motion only. Be prepared to move the joystick to the limits of its range. This lasts around 2 mins and is repeated a few times. The later ones, you have to set the difficulty level as you go along by pressing the green key to get harder and the red key to get easier. The harder it is, the higher your maximum potential score, but the more you're penalised if you fail to follow the lines well. One tip I heard was to press the green key about ten times to make sure it's at maximum difficulty (no indication of how many levels of difficulty there were), then concentrate very hard on getting it right. One less thing to worry about.
Keep the cross in the box - You have to control a cross using rudder pedals (L/R) and joystick (U/D). Practice plenty before the test proper begins - it's easy to try to move the joystick L/R and that has no effect. When the test starts, the computer tries to move the cross out of the box and you have to keep it in (the box doesn't move). Expect to go to maximum limits on joystick and rudder. This lasts around 2 mins, and is repeated a few times.
Subtraction - 20 questions, quick fire, one button for true, one for false. This you can practice for - try writing a routine in VB, C++, Q-Basic, Excel or on your fancy graphical calculator. Some are easy: 568 - 420 = 146, others more tricky: 853 - 189 = 674 (both false by the way). There's no time limit, but how long you took for each is recorded. Final score must be calculated on both speed and accuracy.
Shoot down the enemy planes - You have to choose whether to fire a missile or not at a plane which appears on the screen in a random position. The difference between enemy and friendly is wing length - longer for enemy than friendly. Starts with quite a big difference on the first test, then gets harder. By the last one you think they're taking the p**s because they're almost identical. The problem is that you see only one plane at a time, so if say you kill four planes in a row, you aren't sure if they were all short or all long wing-span. Don't worry about the plane/missile scenario, just get one finger on each button and think 'Big = Right, Small = Left'. You'll probably do better than you thought - I did.
Landing approach - You have to line a plane up on the centre of a runway, and bring speed to close to 100 knots when you hit 50 feet. It's all line drawings a ZX Spectrum could easily handle. One recommendation is this: Line up centrally first, get to 70 or so feet, then kill the throttle to lose the speed to 120 and dive gently the last bit to hit 50 feet before speed drops below 100. Rudder's not used, just joystick and throttle up/down buttons on the keypad. You get a practice run for this one, then three real goes.
Bloke with briefcase - 72 questions in three sets of 24. You're shown a crude line drawing of a man from either in front or behind, with a briefcase in one hand. You have to press the < or > button to indicate which hand the case is in. The picture may be right way up or rotated thorugh 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Make sure you know which button is under which finger. You'll kick yourself each time you get one wrong. Be as fast as you can.
When that's over you're free to go. There's a pub on the Waggoners roundabout. Two pints of Holsten Export and you'll be curled up on the bar sleeping like a baby. Don't drink and drive...
That just about sums it all up. If anyone's got more to add, please do so. Wish me luck - should get the pass/fail letter this week. Any gems for the final board anyone? E-mail me.
WGW
:)
You have to get to the test centre (The Rivers, Cranebank) for 9.30am. They tell you there's no parking, but there is in fact a free multi-storey staff car-park nearby, no questions asked. You turn right off the dual carriageway after Waggoners Roundabout heading from M4 J3, following the sign to Cranebank, BA Training Centre. Bear left, still following the signs. Rivers is straight on, but take the first right, then turn right into the car park just before the security checkpoint and help yourself to a space. When I got there at 8.45 there were plenty. Retrace your steps to find signs to the Rivers again.
You get to help yourself to coffee and watch News 24 in a very posh wine-bar type reception area. You get called at around 10am to start the tests. These run something like this:
* Psychometric test - 300 questions in around 40 mins, though there's no real time limit. The idea is you answer quick so you can't lie. There are loads of questions like 'I fall asleep all the time', 'There are days I feel like doing nothing at all'. Suggest you answer 'False' to these. Also try not to come across as racist, unsociable or a compulsive gambler; paying taxes is good, taking drugs is bad, etc. As to 'I would be interested in seeing a film about the life of the otter', take a chance: I said 'True'. Maybe that's what they select on and ignore the rest of the day's results...
You then get split into two groups, one to do the the written tests, one to do the Micropat (Microcomputer Pilot Aptitude Test). Groups swap over after lunch.
* Written tests:
Mathematics - 12 mins to do 30 questions. Different to how it used to be when there was no chance you'd finish them all - you should have time to do all of them. Some are harder than others, so come back to them. Make sure you get the questions in the right answer boxes if you skip a couple - the question numbers are in yellow on shiny white paper, so you can barely read them: be careful. All A-E multiple choice - calculate the area of this shape, what's the average price of these three quotes, etc. For practice, download the 'GMAT Test Prep' from <A HREF="http://www.petersons.com" TARGET="_blank">www.petersons.com</A> and try sections 2 and 5. Also <A HREF="http://www.shldirect.com." TARGET="_blank">www.shldirect.com.</A> Plenty of books and stuff around too. Also brush up on your mental arithmetic, long division, tables etc.
Verbal Reasoning - 25 mins to do around 40 questions. Again, you should have time to finish them all. A number of passages, each with four statements to which you have to answer 'True', 'False', 'Can't say'. Remember it's based on the what's in the passage, not your opinions. If something's implied but not stated, then 'Can't say'. If somethings predicted next year, and the statement says someting will happen, then 'Can't say'. The whole thing's ambiguous and very horrible. At least with the maths you know roughly how you're doing, with this you just don't know. If I failed on anyhing, it's this. Not much you can do to practice, though you could try <A HREF="http://www.shldirect.com," TARGET="_blank">www.shldirect.com,</A> just concentrate very hard and watch out for what I just mentioned.
* Nice buffet lunch slots in here, and a chance to ask a few questions. Aptitude tests are one a week all year at the moment, 20 at each, so around 1000 people per year get to this stage. Around 6 to 8 training courses start each year with maybe ten to 12 cadets on each (they were a bit cryptic here), so you can work out your odds of getting through if you've been invited to aptitudes (1 in 10 if the best cases are true). Training lasts around 18 months: Oxford + Florida or Milwaukee + Buffalo Creek. Accomodation provided plus £30 per week pocket money. (Better get that mortgage and car loan paid off now. And save up a few grand. Just be glad you're not paying for the training too.)
* Micropat: (think these are in order, pretty sure I've remembered all of them)
If you get the chance, grab a glass (or two) of water beforehand and take it in with you. All tests are carried out sat in front of an ancient (286?) IBM PC with a joystick, rudder pedals under the table, plus a numerical keypad with a few extra keys on it. Tests are stressful - two mins feels like forever. There's no time limit between the tests, so sit back, take some deep breaths and sip that water. There's nothing you can do to practice, just give it your best shot on the day. Maybe take some paracetamol for after. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif And some Right Guard.
Keep the square between the two lines - The computer moves a short pair of lines (maybe an inch long) back and forth on the screen following a sine wave of varying amplitude. You have to keep a little square between them with a joystick, left and right motion only. Be prepared to move the joystick to the limits of its range. This lasts around 2 mins and is repeated a few times. The later ones, you have to set the difficulty level as you go along by pressing the green key to get harder and the red key to get easier. The harder it is, the higher your maximum potential score, but the more you're penalised if you fail to follow the lines well. One tip I heard was to press the green key about ten times to make sure it's at maximum difficulty (no indication of how many levels of difficulty there were), then concentrate very hard on getting it right. One less thing to worry about.
Keep the cross in the box - You have to control a cross using rudder pedals (L/R) and joystick (U/D). Practice plenty before the test proper begins - it's easy to try to move the joystick L/R and that has no effect. When the test starts, the computer tries to move the cross out of the box and you have to keep it in (the box doesn't move). Expect to go to maximum limits on joystick and rudder. This lasts around 2 mins, and is repeated a few times.
Subtraction - 20 questions, quick fire, one button for true, one for false. This you can practice for - try writing a routine in VB, C++, Q-Basic, Excel or on your fancy graphical calculator. Some are easy: 568 - 420 = 146, others more tricky: 853 - 189 = 674 (both false by the way). There's no time limit, but how long you took for each is recorded. Final score must be calculated on both speed and accuracy.
Shoot down the enemy planes - You have to choose whether to fire a missile or not at a plane which appears on the screen in a random position. The difference between enemy and friendly is wing length - longer for enemy than friendly. Starts with quite a big difference on the first test, then gets harder. By the last one you think they're taking the p**s because they're almost identical. The problem is that you see only one plane at a time, so if say you kill four planes in a row, you aren't sure if they were all short or all long wing-span. Don't worry about the plane/missile scenario, just get one finger on each button and think 'Big = Right, Small = Left'. You'll probably do better than you thought - I did.
Landing approach - You have to line a plane up on the centre of a runway, and bring speed to close to 100 knots when you hit 50 feet. It's all line drawings a ZX Spectrum could easily handle. One recommendation is this: Line up centrally first, get to 70 or so feet, then kill the throttle to lose the speed to 120 and dive gently the last bit to hit 50 feet before speed drops below 100. Rudder's not used, just joystick and throttle up/down buttons on the keypad. You get a practice run for this one, then three real goes.
Bloke with briefcase - 72 questions in three sets of 24. You're shown a crude line drawing of a man from either in front or behind, with a briefcase in one hand. You have to press the < or > button to indicate which hand the case is in. The picture may be right way up or rotated thorugh 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Make sure you know which button is under which finger. You'll kick yourself each time you get one wrong. Be as fast as you can.
When that's over you're free to go. There's a pub on the Waggoners roundabout. Two pints of Holsten Export and you'll be curled up on the bar sleeping like a baby. Don't drink and drive...
That just about sums it all up. If anyone's got more to add, please do so. Wish me luck - should get the pass/fail letter this week. Any gems for the final board anyone? E-mail me.
WGW
:)