NEW 2020 Assistant Principal Officer Competition

compaq32 wrote: »

I hate that there are no decent situational analysis sample tests. I did well on these last time both online and supervised but it would be great to prepare better.
This is the most important score in terms of your placement on the order of merit (OOM).
Best of luck everyone.
If anyone knows a Mary Poppins please send them my way!!!!!

Hi what makes you say the situational analysis is the most important for OOM please?[/QUOTE]

Oh it’s widely known that it is the most important. In the supervised tests - you only need to pass verbal & numerical & SA with an etray exercise place you.

Rainbowstar wrote: »

Oh it’s widely known that it is the most important. In the supervised tests - you only need to pass verbal & numerical & SA with an etray exercise place you.

Stop providing inaccurate information. That's the second time in a few pages you've done it.

Firstly, you don't "only need to pass verbal & numerical" in a supervised test. You need to get within a certain percentage of what you got the first time. That is a fact.

Secondly, Situational Judgement is not "the most important". Your order of merit will nearly always (depending on the competition) factor in your score from verbal and situational, so verbal is just as important as situational.

Thirdly, in response to your post from a few pages back, (post 402), "it’s clear to me there’s no negative marking". There is almost certainly negative marking. If you read the booklet that came with this competition, you would see that it says "Due to the advances of online testing, the scoring of assessments has become more complex. It is suggested that you do the tests as quickly and accurately as you can."

Mervyn Skidmore wrote: »

Just on the whole competition thing, you'd think they would change up the recruitment process every now and then. A lot of large multinationals have dropped this kind of testing now at this stage. I fail to see the relevance of some of it. The verbal reasoning/situational questions have some merit but the numerical is a bit daft really and nothing like a real world example. Costing and budgeting is essential but your CV should cover that, not a blast through 18 questions.

its crazy, i have 2 bachelors and a masters yet my "intelligence" is measured from a test that takes 30 minutes.

i wouldn't say i passed the tests as i was rushing a bit doing them. Not saying i am made for the job but i think at this level a CV and phone call should be the screening method. Why over complicate things?

lucat wrote: »

Because they can't call hundreds or thousands of people. These tests are basically just a filtering method.

I completely understand that, but are they filtering the right people? There might be other ways of doing this. A fairly high percentage of people that make it through to the interview, do not pass the interview therefore it would seem like a fairly ineffective method of filtering. I know some large volume competitions use a keyword search on CVs. This could be suitable.

Chocolate Teapot wrote: »

Are you sure about this Rainbowstar? Generally you just have to pass numerical and your OOM is based on a combination of your verbal and situational scores. At least that’s how it’s been in any competition I’ve ever done

Perhaps the verbal is taken into the order of merit in the supervised but I am almost sure it's the SA and the E-tray in the supervised.
It was the supervised test I was referring to here.
I know the verbal and SA are counted together in this initial round.

Chocolate Teapot wrote: »

Are you sure about this Rainbowstar? Generally you just have to pass numerical and your OOM is based on a combination of your verbal and situational scores. At least that’s how it’s been in any competition I’ve ever done

I know verbal is for sure in this initial test - but I think the SA and the Etray in the supervised (which was so hard!!) are the main two at that stage. Again, this is based in what me and others felt from our scoring but not 100.

You guys sound a bit over qualified to me haha.

I do agree about the layout of these tests though - i know there is no perfect solution but the numberical in particular just seems very over the top. As someone mentioned above anyone going for this level trying to work out complex tables with a calculator is doing it wrong as far as i'm concerned :-)

Can anyone confirm how many verbal questions must be completed within the 19 minutes? I believe someone said on an earlier post that 3 questions are asked on each paragraph?

Dublinboard wrote: »

What is an e tray? I thought we just had to compete numerical and verbal reasoning and a situational judgement questionnaire?

Oh I wish that was all Dublin Board!!
If you progress through this and then short-listing (that was the next stage last year - based on your application)
Then you sit the supervised tests AGAIN, PLUS an e-tray exercise.
It's basically a work scenario where you are asked to write a brief/ memo based on info given. You then get interrupted with a demand from your boss to do another task e.g. an email to the Minister.
In the middle of all this you get lots of lots of questions with work case scenarios you have to answer - multiple choice.
There is prep work etc sent before-hand so you'll get it if you progress that far.

I found it extremely challenging and it overwhelmed me on top of the other 3 tests. I was 8 months pregnant which didn't help!!

Like they now do these initial tests for PO online with a webcam active to supervise you. Why not do this for AP and then only bring us in for the e-tray.
I don't understand it - it's very demanding on that day - in my experience.

Nicole2020 wrote: »

Just completed... thought the numerical was really tough! I ended up guessing a lot especially towards the end. I thought it was much tougher than the practice exams I had done but definitely agree the practice within the test was confusing, glad I had read here not to panic. Verbal was ok, I started to run out of time so not confident on the last 2 or 3 answers. Situational was fairly standard, it's always hard to know with that. Not holding out much hope though, really doubt I passed the numerical.

Same as that - I found numerical much harder than last year. Doubt I passed. Best of luck with it!

To anyone who hasn't done the tests yet - be careful. The website is getting really wobbly.

I'd clicked the link and registered my email and login on Sunday. Practiced after getting home from work today and was ready to do them but kept getting browser and login errors.

Just restarted for the third time and it's letting me back in but only through a different browser (wouldn't log in with chrome or firefox).

And here's a separate post on how the 2018 competition worked (for me). Again, this is no guarantee as to how it will operate this time around. You will see changes between the 2016 and 2018 competitions.

Stage 1 Home Aptitude Tests
Tests - held between 27 September and 2 October 2018
Results - on 25 October 2018. Gave order of merit based on verbal and situational judgment scores. You just had to pass numerical. Qualifying score on all 3 was 40 points.

Stage 2 Shortlisting
This was different from 2016 competition.
Anyone who scored more than 106 points in Stage 1 (i.e. combined verbal and situational judgment score exceeding 106 points) then had their application form reviewed by a panel who decided if it met the standard or not. I don't know how many were knocked out here, but I'm aware that at least a few appealed the decision to PAS.

Stage 3 Supervised Tests
Tests - I think tests were spread out over a long period with several batches. Mine was in early March 2019
Results - on 20 March 2019. Order of merit was determined by Job Simulation and Etray results only.
Verbal - qualifying score 38 points
Numerical - qualifying score 38 points
Job Simulation - qualifying score 41 points
Etray Exercise - qualifying score 40 points

Stage 4 Interview
Interviews - held over several weeks in April 2019 (again may have been different for others - depends what batch you were in).
Results - 23 April 2019. Gave order of merit for your First Chosen Region, and separate message later giving you OOM for your Second Chosen Region. Gave breakdown of scores for each competency. Qualifying score was 41 points per competency, with a maximum of 100 points for each.

Crimson_Ghost wrote: »

Let myself get bogged down on one question, lost track of time and don't think I answered enough correctly to pass. I only got as far as Q. 9 before it timed out.

Don't worry too much yet, if they go by the same qualifying score as previous competitions, you only need to get 40 points out of a maximum of 80. Which puts it at exactly 9 questions right.

And that's only if they use the same scoring as before. A lot will depend on how candidates perform overall as a group.

The Student wrote: »

Agree with you. I have a degree, a masters and am a qualified accountant.

But how did you find the maths 🀣🀣