latest writing test

[Bex <rebeccaf -at- COMPNEWS -dot- CO -dot- UK>]

Hope this is not a really stale subject.

I've been following the discussion on tests.  Partly for the debate on
the appropriateness of tests and partly to get an idea of what tests
might occur.  For those people who are interested in hearing examples of
tests, here's a few I've been to recently.


I just went to an interview where I was asked to write a guide to using a
telephone, including introduction to concepts of telephone numbers and
dialling codes, for an office worker who had never seen a telephone
before and did not know what one was - to the extent of not even knowing
that it was an accoustic device - but who was in every other way
completely conversant in modern technology.  The next test involved
writing instructions from a programmers's notes and annotating the notes
with questions.

It was a test where the tester just left me with the test and came back later.

In the afternoon I did a 'computer aptitude test' which seemed mainly to
be a test of concentration.  There was one test where you had to follow a
flow chart, adding or taking away 1 or 2 to existing small numbers and
going round and round the flow chart until a particular number exceeded a
certain value, etc. Another one involved a very complicated maths things
in which you carried out small operations depending on the values and
locations of other numbers.  Another test involved following fairly
simple maths rules but on figures imbedded deep brackets.

A few days before that I went to an interview where I did an incredibly simple
IQ type test with questions like

2 6 4 6 6 6 8 6 ...  - insert the next figure
or
glove is to hand as sock is to ... (choose the right answer).

I've been to many of these tests and some have been quite hard, but this
particular one seemed very easy.

At the same place I took another test with the question being something
like 'for each of the following groups of four words/phrases, number each
word/phrase in the order that they apply to you'.  (The first test was how
you think other people see you and the second was the same but how you really
are.)
An example would be something like

'getting things done
happy
make friends
personality plus'

I found this pretty weird, as those four things seem unrelated
conceptually as well as grammatically (and what's 'personality plus'
anyway?)

Another test at the same place was a test for ability to work as part of
team.  There were about 8 sentences in each group and you had to
distribute 10 points between the 8 sentences according to how well they
applied to you.  The sentences described ways in which you might deal
with a given task or problem.

In both cases the tests were given to me by the technical writer who was
interviewing me but they both said that everyone who applied to join the
company had to take some of the tests.

What do you think tests reveal about the company?  Many people who have
written to the list seem to imply that if they didn't like the test they
felt that they wouldn't like the company.  This seems fair enough.  I
suppose even if all they revealed was that the company had picked an old
fashioned source for their standardised tests then that would be
something.  I was also wondering how much those psyochmetric test really
reveal.  I'd have thought a perceptive interviewer could do just as well,
especially when the test itself is so baffling.
What do other people think?



----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Rebecca  Filardo, PA Data Design /\ /\
The Bishop's Manor, Howden      / o o \ Phone: +44 (0) 1430 432480
N Humberside  DN14 7BL           > ^ <    Fax: +44 (0) 1430 432022