Hardest psychometric test ?

[Greg38]

I have heard that there is 4 psychometric tests involved to become a train driver. I have been practicing the group bourdon test. Does anyone know if this is known to be the hardest as this seems to get practiced alot ?

 

[deepblue82]

This is completely personal I think - that's the purpose in psychometric testing we are all different. For me at stage 1 I found the 4-dots / group bourdon test the most challenging and stage 2 the photo memory test. Speaking to others at the testing there was a complete range, for some it was the tones test, or others the TRP at stage 1. At stage 2 those who failed in my group failed on the concentration test (grey square) and the 2-hand coordination test.

I read a fair bit saying there was little purpose in practicing, for me I practiced all the tests and found I did improve as I practiced, though this might just have been me getting more familiar with the tests and calmer with them.

 

[DB0161]

I have heard that there is 4 psychometric tests involved to become a train driver. I have been practicing the group bourdon test. Does anyone know if this is known to be the hardest as this seems to get practiced alot ?

I think it's more a case of it being the only one that you can really practice for. Which I know sounds strange but when you sit the tests you will realise what everyone means.

Practise the bourdon one to death, in terms of the hardest it's very much individual. A lot of people struggle with the picture memeory test, I found the high and low beep tones a little tricky.

Best of luck to you, get an early night, early start and take a deep breath before you start any of the tests.

 

[deepblue82]

I think it's more a case of it being the only one that you can really practice for. Which I know sounds strange but when you sit the tests you will realise what everyone means.

Practise the bourdon one to death, in terms of the hardest it's very much individual. A lot of people struggle with the picture memeory test, I found the high and low beep tones a little tricky.

Best of luck to you, get an early night, early start and take a deep breath before you start any of the tests.

100% agree on the importance of sleeping well and being fresh on the day.

 

[ComUtoR]

I would say that the difficulty isn't in the tests themselves. They are all pretty straight forward. Part of the difficulty and what often appears to trip people up is the failure to listen to simple instructions.

The dots test does have a pretty high failure rate. :/

As others have said, it is bespoke to the individual and that you would be better at some tests than others. Listen carefully to all instructions, relax, take your time and keep focused on each specific task.

 

[Stigy]

I agree it’s personal to each individual. I don’t think they’re hard as such, just intensive. I personally found the Group Bourden easy, but I know this one catches a lot of people out. In contrast, I found the DFFT (Driver Fault Finding Test) the most tricky (enhanced only test).

I would also say that these aren’t really tests one can or should be able to revise for as such. As long as you have an awareness of what to expect, you’ll be okay. The reason you’re only allowed two attempts (failed ones), if because it’s largely a case of you’re either suitable for driver training, or your not. These assessments aren’t necessarily about being suitable for train driving, but more about being suitable to be trained to be a train driver.

 

[BabyFacedGent]

I did these tests two years but failed at the MMI stage, the best advice I can offer is face each test as they come and do not overthink, if you are unsure of what to do make sure to ask questions before you begin the actual tests, they are not designed to be impossible but as mentioned before are more challenging at different stages for everyone. Best of luck, hope you do pass.

 

[train-safe]

Id say the MMI is difficult as they do really pick at your answers

 

[SecretSquirrel]

I would agree with the MMI. Again, it's down to the person. For me, I found the assessments (bourdon tests etc) relatively straight forward. I failed my first MMI and day my last chance earlier. I have he same amount of dreadful feeling this time around, much more so as it's the final attempt.

 

[hooverboy]

these aren't really psychometric tests you're discussing though.
this is perception and memory tests more than anything.

Psychometric testing tends to be more 20 odd questions of.." you are in scenario A and given multiple choice options of how you'll react"
There is no right or wrong answer, but there will be a build up pattern of behaviour detected by your answers

 

[paepo]

these aren't really psychometric tests you're discussing though.
this is perception and memory tests more than anything.

Psychometric testing tends to be more 20 odd questions of.." you are in scenario A and given multiple choice options of how you'll react"
There is no right or wrong answer, but there will be a build up pattern of behaviour detected by your answers

No, what's being discussed are psychometric tests.
What you have mentioned is a situational judgement exercise which is a type of psychometric test but all the tests being discussed are psychometric assessments.

In general, psychometric tests usually consist of:

Aptitude Tests- which assess cognitive abilities (numeracy, literacy, spatial awareness, information retention etc) and Group Bourdon, TRP, etc all fall into this category when talking about driver tests.

Behavioural Tests- which highlight personality traits and suitability for specific roles. This is where your example of "20 odd questions" for a situational judgement test fits in and this is done in driver recruitment and then results used by the interviewer who carries out the MMI to focus on key personality traits of an applicant to focus in and dig deeper into answers during the MMI.

Assessment Interviews- based on human interaction assessments. Exercises or specific industry questions (MMI for drivers) these are usually carried out by specially trained assessors or by psychologists but for MMI it's either trained staff from OPC, TOC, FOC.

 

[Moose27]

I would agree with the MMI. Again, it's down to the person. For me, I found the assessments (bourdon tests etc) relatively straight forward. I failed my first MMI and day my last chance earlier. I have he same amount of dreadful feeling this time around, much more so as it's the final attempt.

if you don’t mind me asking, do you know where you fell down on the MMI? I’m awaiting the results of mine but just have no idea what to think of how I did!

 

[4F89]

Hardest "test" is by far the MMI. The rest are things you can do, or you can't do. I practiced things once or twice to become familiar, passed 1st time with very little sleep for paper tests, and not much more for computer ones.

 

[Grannyjoans]

Group Bourden is easy if you've practiced it to death, very hard if you haven't, but I think if anyone didn't practice this then they've not tried hard at all to get the job and relying entirely on ability.

 

[4F89]

Group Bourden is easy if you've practiced it to death, very hard if you haven't, but I think if anyone didn't practice this then they've not tried hard at all to get the job and relying entirely on ability.

I must be blessed then

 

[scouseyb123]

I passed on my second and final attempt, I found the Tones test in Stage 1 and the hand eye coordination with the joysticks in Stage 2 the hardest bits lol!

 

[Llama]

I must be blessed then

You should (in theory) have more of what it takes be be a 'good driver'. Obviously there are far more variables, such as your own attitude and commitment, and things that affect everyone and that are outside your control such as life events during training, the quality of your trainers & instructors, what actually happens during your training and final competency assessment and good old fashioned luck.

Personally I found the psychometric tests mostly straightforward and passed first time, these were the early days of the internet so there was no identical practice material or advice available other than the practice papers sent out by CCL - the company who did the tests - the concepts of each practice paper were 'along the same lines' as each test but sufficiently different that they didn't give the game away. Back in those days every now and then you would see a huge queue of people queueing round the block with the head of the queue outside an office off the concourse of Manchester Victoria station - they were queueing for application forms for trainee driver vacancies at FNW.

The practice papers for the dots test was a few A6 size sheets of random letters in the same style as a wordsearch but without the hidden words - eg 'pick out all of the letter Bs'. I do remember buying a wordsearch book though to give me more practice material. Hopefully it was the best couple of quid I ever spent because the invigilator told me after doing the dots test that I had passed, but not by much. The rest of the tests I did well at though.

At the start of the day there were about ten candidates for the tests, I remember walking into reception, being sent to the waiting room and thinking how everyone else looked far more intelligent than I did - most of them looked like doctors and lawyers and were all older than me. We got called into the test room and it was explained to us that for each test once we'd all said we understood what was required there was no going back. Some tests had a 'practice' beforehand to try to give us an idea of the concept behind the test but after each one the invigilator wouldn't start the test until everyone had said they understood what the test required. After the first test we all got sent back to the waiting room, then two or three names were called out and asked to go in to another room. They disappeared and those of us left behind had no idea whether being called out and taken away was a good thing or a bad thing. As it quickly turned out, it was a bad thing and we never saw them again, those of us left in the waiting room got called back into the test room soon after for the next test, this happened for each test. By the time the reaction test came around (I forget the name of it, it isn't used these days) there were only three of us left. Two of us passed it.

These were the original psychometric tests with the mechanical comprehension test etc. - about half a dozen tests in all which IIRC were mech comp, TRP test (glop, based on old rules for applying sandite), dials and gauges (quite a few failed this), I think possibly some memory test which ironically I've forgotten, dots, reactions test then after lunch the 'structured interview' as it was known then. Just before lunch the two of us left 'in the running' had to write down answers to three questions - "give a time when..." etc. After lunch we were interviewed individually by the same invigilator on our answers to these questions. That seemed fairly straightforward to be honest, and the invigilator told us beforehand that it was fairly routine and either said or gave us the impression that people rarely fail this "unless they say something daft". I've since heard that this interview (what is now often known as the MMI on here) is often considered more daunting. I've also heard that the tests are sometimes done over more than one day nowadays.

As it happens, the two of us who passed all the tests were probably by a stretch the two youngest and least 'intelligent looking' (no disrespect to the other guy) there on the day, at the end the invigilator told us that we had passed everything, she couldn't say that we'd definitely be offered a job at FNW because that was not her place to say, but she said she could give us the nod that "we'd be all right".

 

[Grannyjoans]

I believe that if the Group Bourden tool never existed I would have failed. I remember my first attempt at the practice tool online and remember getting about 20 errors and a pretty slow speed!

With practice I got it down to 0-2 errors per session and increased my speed by 50%! My score on the real thing ended up being overkill but it was good to know that it was one less thing to worry about.

 

[Stigy]

I must be blessed then

Same here

Having said that, I had to redo it with Freightliner as my original score I had with SWT wasn’t to enhanced standard. I passed with Freightliner anyway so I obviously did something better than I did the first time around (although I’ll be honest, I did about the same amount and was equally as certain I’d made no omissions ).

 

[Twotwo]

For me the hardest bit was the tea occ part 1 as the tones started to sound similar. Part 2 and 3 was easier.