• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Network Rail Safety Critical Comms Test

Status
Not open for further replies.

142094

Established Member
Joined
7 Nov 2009
Messages
8,789
Location
Newcastle
Anyone heard about or completed one of the above? Seems to be done on the phone to an automated system, gets you to repeat sentences and answer questions to see if you can communicate to a certain level. Not really sure how you can prepare for one, or how difficult it is.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Tomnick

Established Member
Joined
10 Jun 2005
Messages
5,826
It's been a while since I did mine, but it's fairly straightforward. There were five parts to the test:

1. Simply reading sentences from a sheet (the automated system selects three or four for you to read)
2. Reading back a sentence that's read to you by the automated system
3. Listening to a question and giving the (simple, usually one word!) answer
4. Rearranging groups of words (that are read to you) to form a fairly simple sentence.
5. Free speech - the computer asks you a more complicated question and then you have 20 seconds to give a thorough answer. It's not about getting the answer right (none of mine had a 'right' answer as such), but more about clearly conveying your thoughts. Don't worry, I didn't think I'd done very well at all on this one, but I passed!

You should receive a sheet listing the five sections above (at least, I did!). I don't think there's much you can do to prepare, other than perhaps getting someone to ask you random questions to practice the last part!
 

185

Established Member
Joined
29 Aug 2010
Messages
4,970
The Versant test is very easy.

Practice speaking to a friend and try sound clear, concise and news-reader-ey.

The two questions at the end are the hard bit, where you will be asked to talk about a random subject for about a minute or so each, and what your thoughts / opinions are on that subject.

All about sounding clear, and having a good command of English.
 

142094

Established Member
Joined
7 Nov 2009
Messages
8,789
Location
Newcastle
Sounds quite easy then. It also says that you cannot use a mobile or cordless phone, so will have to find a corded phone somewhere.
 

Tomnick

Established Member
Joined
10 Jun 2005
Messages
5,826
Indeed, I suspect the test would still work with a mobile or cordless phone - but the risk of the call dropping halfway through makes it worth the effort to find a decent corded phone. Good luck!
 

142094

Established Member
Joined
7 Nov 2009
Messages
8,789
Location
Newcastle
£6.00 from Argos apparently (someone else than me doing the test). Had a look at the example questions - probably more difficult to fail it rather than actually pass.
 

Tomnick

Established Member
Joined
10 Jun 2005
Messages
5,826
Don't worry about the questions themselves - they're dead basic common sense questions! It's definitely not a test of knowledge, more (on that section) a test to ensure that you can listen to and understand a (simple) question, and give the correct answer. The last section's a bit more difficult; again though, it's not looking at what you know, but rather how well you can discuss the subject.
 

142094

Established Member
Joined
7 Nov 2009
Messages
8,789
Location
Newcastle
Don't worry about the questions themselves - they're dead basic common sense questions! It's definitely not a test of knowledge, more (on that section) a test to ensure that you can listen to and understand a (simple) question, and give the correct answer. The last section's a bit more difficult; again though, it's not looking at what you know, but rather how well you can discuss the subject.

One of the questions was to re-arrange:

"In the park", "That dog", "Looks lost".

So don't think it could have been that difficult!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top