2024 Assistant Principal in Civil Service

Do we know what the pass rate is normally for these tests?

Yeah, they were so blasé about it when I queried it too.. the tests they published had incorrect instructions, it absolutely ridiculous

Thought the Maths was grand for the first 12 questions, but the last 3 was no clue for me. We'll say no more than cubism…

The Verbal and The SJ? Who knows!

As an Engineer, I quite enjoyed that question. I feel like I'd done it 1000 times during my undergrad.

I thought the one on the company cars and tax rates wasn't too bad, and I'm pretty sure I got at least 2/3 Q's for that one correct. I think you could work out that Q on employee contribution as it wasn't relevant, but the answer was still there. I thought the one on the event planning got a little confusing for the last Q on that "block" as they refer to it. I wasn't really able to work out the last Q and I just picked an answer after 3 mins or trying, just to move on.

I thought I did well on the numerical as it was easy enough most of the way through for me until maybe the last 4 or 5, but even then I think I made a good attempt at 2 of those. Other friends said they got a really tough Q at the end that I did not encounter regarding the dimensions of a shipping container. Considering the assessment throws harder Q's at you the better you do, now I'm not so sure if I encountered that Q as it seemed really hard judging by what other people said, but maybe I got a harder one and didn't realise. Oh well, it's done now.

Other friends said they got a really tough Q at the end that I did not encounter regarding the dimensions of a shipping container. Considering the assessment throws harder Q's at you the better you do, now I'm not so sure

I'd be pretty confident on numerical (I lecture in Engineering Maths) and I got the shipping container as my final question. Its a surprisingly more complicated question than it appears and requires quite a bit of abstract reasoning to deduce the answer.

I wasn't really able to work out the last Q and I just picked an answer after 3 mins or trying, just to move on.

Stack them all one way then rotate and stack the remainder a different way. Looking at my rough work afterwards, I made a mistake and got the question wrong but the approach was fine.

Stack them all one way then rotate and stack the remainder a different way.

The answer was there by just dividing the dimensions of the box into dimensions of the container, then multiplying the number in each axis. i.e., (floor(length of container/length of box) * floor(width of container/etc).

It wasn't possible to fit more boxes into the remaining space.

I think this question wasn't intended to be as difficult as I found it, I was way overthinking it…thinking about volumes and so on.

Yeah I realised volume was wrong and got it but, like others have mentioned, I was hitting 30 minutes at this point so I don't know what to expect results-wise.

All in all I don't think it was more difficult than usual. In fact the situational used the exact same situations/questions as previous years.

With the exception of the SJT, I was a bit freaked out that the tests were more at the level of end-of-primary school Drumcondra tests than say the leaving cert. I know it said about the questions being weighted to your performance and so that made me even more nervous. I did a few practice things and expected them to be much harder. I was a bit sad there was no logical abstract stuff as I love doing those puzzles and you only get the good ones on tests.

If I pass then this is worth taking note of, but if I fail, maybe ignore, but my approach was to treat each block of questions as a piece of information to retain and so I focused my time reading aloud the block and writing down the numbers when doing the first question so for the second and third in each of the five blocks, my head knew where to look. I would come up with my answer without looking at the multiple-choice options, and only select from the options after knowing the answer.

I also used an external large monitor, and a keyboard and mouse, but to do the room and desk scan you had to plug everything out so just bear this in mind as it made it tedious. I worked on the assumption that they would randomly interrupt to ask for video, and that they might record the screen etc, but also following the rules and honesty contract, I made sure to close everything and leave my phone in the other room. My solar powered standard desk calculator broke though so it was good to know I could use the calculator on the computer instead. I’d like four pints of water lined up and read everything out loud, so whoever is reviewing the videos will get a laugh or wince.

I think on the maths I had insurance, cars, event, call centre, sales. The ONLY problem I had was on the last block where I did my calculations, saw it matched to an answer and was about to click, then second guessed myself and was like “oh what if they meant it this way” and calculated that, and then was laughing cuz that TOO was an option! …So I just picked the one I’d gone with by gut and hoped for the best. I did my tests after getting the kids to bed, quite late at night, so 😂, who knows, and I decided to just plough on cuz I’d only end up anxious if I left them.

Obviously on the maths there was a bug on the screen display which made me a bit cross, where you couldn’t see the whole table without scrolling around, but again, decided better to get on with it, but I must remember to say about it just for general feedback. Would love to get a breakdown for each of the three tests no matter how I get on. Was good fun.

This is super helpful to know. Really looking forward to seeing how it all went, regardless! :)

I worked 13 hour days the past three weeks in work as we're so busy. I finished work at 10pm the might before the deadline and started the assessments at 10.30 with no practice.

My calculator broke so I had to have a calculator on the pc which probably fucked me. I had a migraine with the tiredness all the way through it. All a blur and I can't even remember it - not expecting anything!

Any idea when the results will be out?

So, do they release the test results with a test-based OOM and then sift through applications and announce a second ordering of applicants shortly thereafter?

did they really have to send that mail, ha