NATS interview process

[linzi82]

I'm there on the 5th! Not looking forward to it, nor sure I've given myself enough time for studying.

[Spyder35]

Linzi,

Are you there AM or PM? I'm in the AM session - is this your first attempt?

[chris87w]

Hi Crazy Voyager!

Nice to meet you, I too am in the morning on the 11th! So its nice to actually make contact with someone whos gonna be there at the same time! Hows the revision etc coming along? Ive been doing distance/speed/time calculations and im struggling with the division! Argh! Still a few days left to continue studying!

[chris87w]

Speed Distance Time

Definitely going to struggle on these stupid tests! Maths ability sucks!!

Can anyone give me a break down of this question, im trying to use the "distance = speed x time" equation but i keep getting huge numbers, or having to divide awkward ones! Any tips....

At 75 mph, how far do you travel in 4 mins?......

[chris87w]

Think i have fixed that question at 5 miles, think im overly panicking! Has anyone got any tips at all for these questions....definitely a mathmatical douche here.

[chris87w]

Guys, another one....

At 15 mph, how far do you travel in 12 hours and 48 mins?

Obviously the first stage is 15 x 12 = 180.... how do i now move on and work out the 48 mins?

I dont think its right to divide 15 by 60 and then times that by 48? I think im over complicating all this......

[Crazy Voyager]

Burning the midnight oil?

I'll get back to you in the morning with a proper reply, including how I'd think with the math questions Right now I'm off to watch some TV though (again, had enough of the s/d/t questions earlier).

[doc_exe]

15 mph = 0.25 m per minute

12 h and 48 min = 720 min + 48 min = 768 min

so .... 192 miles

[jonnynroy88]

Hey guys I too have interview this Friday and feeling pretty nervous about it. Was wondering if anyone knows the details we need to prep for. My laptop has recently just crashed and seemed to delete everything from my hard drive and email so all of a sudden i'm feeling pretty scared and uninformed

Cheers.

[sambatc]

guys, I thinking breaking it down into miles per minute is over complicating things.

for example, I find it a hell of a lot easier this way...

At 15 mph, how far do you travel in 12 hours and 48 mins?


like you said Chris, 12 hours gets you 12x15=180miles.

Now, as has been mentioned a lot, your 6x tables comes into play. 48 minutes is 8x6, and with 6mins being a tenth of an hour, 48mins then becomes 8/10 of an hour. So, 15mph x8/10 which is 12.

Total being 192miles.

6
12
18
24
30
36
42
....

etc etc

[dcoliv]

Think i have fixed that question at 5 miles, think im overly panicking! Has anyone got any tips at all for these questions....definitely a mathmatical douche here.

Hi,

I think you can tackle this problem in two different ways:

1. distance = speed * time, so distance = 75 * 4 = 300. But then you need to divide this by 60, which in this case is easy: 300 / 60 = 5 miles (if you can't do this in your head, just do 30 / 6 instead, i.e., just memorize the 6 times table).

2. The math in this example is easy, but if you get a harder division you will be losing a lot of precious time. I personally prefer to think like this:

One hour is 60 minutes. So, 1/2 an hour is 30 minutes; 1/3 of an hour is 20 minutes; 1/4 of an hour is 15 minutes; 1/5 of an hour is 12 minutes; 1/6 of an hour is 10 minutes; and so on. Just memorize this.

So, if they ask for 4 minutes, you just need to relate that to one of these mentioned above (it may not be immediate). In this case, if 1/5 of an hour is 12 minutes, then 4 minutes = (1/5 of an hour) / 3, because 12 / 3 = 4, right?

Therefore, if you travel 75 miles in 1 hour, then you travel 75 / 5 miles in 1/5th of an hour (12 minutes): 75 / 5 = 15. To obtain 4 minutes, just divide again by 3 (this is really the "trick"): 15 / 3 = 5.

You could have also immediately divided 75 by 15, because 1/3 of 1/5 is 1/15, but it is harder to divide 75 by 15 than 75 by 5 and then by 3.

I really cannot explain this in a better way. This method seems complicated for this particular question, because the math is straightforward. But if you get into more complicated examples, it usually simplifies things because you break down the math into simpler calculations.

I'll just show another example:

At 15 mph, how far do you travel in 2 hours 20 minutes?

In 2 hours you travel 15 * 2 = 30 miles. Then you need to find the extra 20 minutes. Like I said, 20 minutes is 1/3 of an hour. So, in 20 minutes you travel 15 / 3 = 5 miles. Final result: 30 miles + 5 miles = 35 miles.

You could also have done this: if 1 hour = 60 minutes, then 2h20m = 140 minutes. So, 15 * 140 = 2100, and 2100 / 60 = 35 miles.

Notice how easier it is to apply the first method in this case. It is straightforward and you don't lose any time multiplying or dividing stuff.

Now imagine the question is "at 15 mph, how far do you travel in 2 hours 54 minutes?"

In this case, since 54 is not straightforward, you need to find a relation between 54 and the hour, like I've done with the 4 minutes in the other example. In that example, I used 4 = 12 / 3. Now you should use 6 * 9 = 54. As 6 is 1/10 of an hour, 54 minutes is 1/10 * 9 = 9/10 of an hour. So, in 54 minutes, you travel (15 * 9) / 10 = 13.5 miles. Now just add this to the other 30 miles (15 mph * 2 hours) and you get 43.5 miles.

In the end, I just think you need to choose the method which will save you more time.

I hope this helps.

[dcoliv]

I think I'll be staying at the Premier Inn Fareham the night before Stage 1, in Whiteley.

What is the best way to go to the CTC in the morning? I won't have a car.

I think it's possible to walk but you need to go through the motorway so I'd like to avoid that. It also seems to be a very short distance in order to catch a taxi. Are there any buses around that take you to that area?

Thanks

[gazb2]

Hi guys....first time poster here.

Got my stage 1 booked at Prestwick on the 3/12/10 @ 9am. Excited and nervous....but the forum is excellent!!

All the best

[Crazy Voyager]

Now imagine the question is "at 15 mph, how far do you travel in 2 hours 54 minutes?"

In this case, since 54 is not straightforward, you need to find a relation between 54 and the hour, like I've done with the 4 minutes in the other example. In that example, I used 4 = 12 / 3. Now you should use 6 * 9 = 54. As 6 is 1/10 of an hour, 54 minutes is 1/10 * 9 = 9/10 of an hour. So, in 54 minutes, you travel (54 * 9) / 10 = 48.6 miles. Now just add this to the other 30 miles (15 mph * 2 hours) and you get 78.6 miles.

In the end, I just think you need to choose the method which will save you more time.

I hope this helps.

Great post but you've made a slight error here, the good thing is that it is really quite easy to spot if you think about it.
You've said that "in 54 minutes you travel (54 * 9) / 10 = 48.6 miles". But we already know that we were travelling with 15mph, so in less then one hour there's now way we can have travelled more than 15 miles.

The correct answer should be that in 54 minutes you travel 13.5 miles (15 miles per hour, and 54 minutes is 9/10 of an hour. So therefore I substracted 1.5 from 15 and got 13.5).
So final answer is 30+13.5=43.5 miles in 2 hours and 54 minutes (notice this is very close to 45 miles that you would travel in 3 hours, so the answer makes sense).

Well seems we have a lot of good posts about maths so I won't be posting more on that subject now anyhow

Nice to meet you, I too am in the morning on the 11th! So its nice to actually make contact with someone whos gonna be there at the same time! Hows the revision etc coming along? Ive been doing distance/speed/time calculations and im struggling with the division! Argh! Still a few days left to continue studying!

It's great to finally know I won't be completly alone pn the big day
I'm going to stay at the premier inn the night before, will you be driving down on the same day?

I've really not been revising the motivation paper at all, I looked it over but I know almost everything in there already (no not the aircraft specs in detail but I know the general idea, B747 for short hauls and an E135 cross the atlantic ) so therefore it hasn't been a priority.

I've been playing a little puzzle game every day ( Set Daily Puzzle ), mostly to get used to sorting shapes and because it might give me some practice in problem solving (it's quite fun aswell ), so I've done that every day for a while now.

Then I've gotten underway with the d/s/t calculations, picked up a paper for the first time yesterday, I'm solving the questions at around 22-23 seconds each now but I want to work that down a lot more. I know I spend a lot of time doing writing now that I don't need to (writing when the speed is 60mph for example). So now that's the major thing I'm trying to smooth out.

Other then that I'm planning to look over the NATS example cubes at least two times before the big day, but since I only have found those three cubes to work with it's not easy to prepare for that part. Perhaps I will make a few cubes of my own though, but we'll see.

So overall, it's going well (I think!) but it's so hard to say. I don't belive there's anyway you can overprepare for this and even I'm feeling confident in my abilities, how ever I'm still certain those test will be everything but easy.

How about yourself? It seems you're focusing a lot on the math right now?

[dcoliv]

Great post but you've made a slight error here, the good thing is that it is really quite easy to spot if you think about it.
You've said that "in 54 minutes you travel (54 * 9) / 10 = 48.6 miles". But we already know that we were travelling with 15mph, so in less then one hour there's now way we can have travelled more than 15 miles.

The correct answer should be that in 54 minutes you travel 13.5 miles (15 miles per hour, and 54 minutes is 9/10 of an hour. So therefore I substracted 1.5 from 15 and got 13.5).
So final answer is 30+13.5=43.5 miles in 2 hours and 54 minutes (notice this is very close to 45 miles that you would travel in 3 hours, so the answer makes sense).

ehehe, you're right, I got the numbers mixed up while writing the post. Well, I've already learned one thing today: never post math stuff here before drinking the morning coffee! I'm going to edit the post, thanks for spotting the error!

[Crazy Voyager]

No worries, I've done it myself so many times aswell

[Spyder35]

Guys,

Just doing some prep for my stage one this Friday and brushing up on airspace etc. Could someone confirm the class of airspace at aerodromes,TCAs; I was sure it was all Class D in the UK and this is what it says in the NATS pre reading material but it mentions Class A as well in the CAP493 document.

Am I over-complicating things here?

Thanks in advance

Spyder

[Crazy Voyager]

Class D is the most common but for example Heathrow has class A airspace for it's CTR. You will also find a lot of the Terminal areas in the UK have class A around London and Manchester.

But most common should be class D as far as I know.

[Spyder35]

Thanks,

The way it is written in the material, to me, reads that control areas around aerodromes are Class D...no mention of Class A, but as we both knos, it does exist.

Cheers

[Crazy Voyager]

I'm not sure it's intended for you to know that class A do exist around airports, it's likely it's considered overkill at the first stage. But being well prepared never hurts I guess