Help!? Aptitude Test for Cert 2 Electrotechnology Studies

[grumpybastard]

Hey all

I have an aptitude test on Friday for a pre-apprenticeship course - Certificate II in Electrotechnology Studies (Pre-vocational) Certificate II in Electrotechnology Studies (Pre-vocational) (http://www.bhtafe.edu.au/courses/local/Pages/ETE01.aspx)

Well after 20 years in IT, im more than ready for a career change and not wanting to bore you with all the details i'll jump straight in with my question ....

What the hell do i study for this? Its been 15 years since i last did any real Maths! :eek:

This is all i know-
Please note: There are no practice tests. The test will cover general aptitude, literacy and numeracy skills. You are not permitted to bring a calculator to your test.

Please bring the following items to the test session:
Pencil - HB
Eraser
Pen

I will be competing with VCE students straight out of school, i reckon i will be okay in literacy but not numeracy?

Does anyone have any helpful insider info???

Cheers
Matt

[Sully]

Nothing too much to worry about here mate. These tests are mostly based around common sense.
They can also be called psychometric testing and there are several practice tests you can perform online. Google is your friend.

[isuzurover]

It is tafe, I can't imagine it being difficult.

I can't imagine it being much more difficult than multiplication and division.

Practice some multiplication and division, square roots and pythagoras's theorem.

No calculator - so they can't ask for sin/cos etc.

[grumpybastard]

psychometric testing....

Cool! That gives me a good starting point with my good mate Google :)

No Calculator has to be good thing? Unless its because its all Algebra?!? :)

[weeds]

CERT II, should't be too difficult, maths should be pretty basic

[Ivan]

No calculator - so they can't ask for sin/cos etc.

We used to do sine, cosine etc from books :o no calculators

Ivan

[Blknight.aus]

you'll be up against

basic BIMDAS up to and including triple digit figures
Single variable equations(IE solve for x where 3x^2=12)(Heres a link (http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/equation-formula.html))
polynomials (2x^4+6x-5) (Heres a link (http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/polynomials-general-form.html))

and maybe

some quadratics (I cant make a simple example make sense, heres a link (http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/quadratic-equation.html))
maybe some binomials (Again I cant make a simple example make sense heres a link (http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/special-binomial-products.html))

and as for where to go when you need maths help?

the same place I go when I need to make sure Im doing the crunching right.

Math is Fun - Maths Resources (http://www.mathsisfun.com/index.htm)

[DeeJay]

In the old days it was psychoimperial testing :)

And we put air in tyres, not kilopascals..

[Davie]

Take your slide rule with you, not many examiners would even know what it is, That is if you have one and can remember how to use it.[tonguewink][smilebigeye][biggrin]

[pfillery]

I did an aptitude test for an auto electrical apprenticeship a few years back. Lots of the maths was more along the lines of your lateral thinking and thinking outside the box type of question (for example the picture of half a dozen gears or cogs with an arrow indicating the turning direction of one cog and asking for the direction of another specified cog), pretty simple and I suck at maths but aced the psychometric testing and the aptitude test. Check out the Police websites for most Australian states - they use psychometric testing and have sample tests you can do online (or they did a few years back).

Would have got in too if my %&@^ing optometrist wasn't such a tool and misdiagnosed a detached retina, one of my eyes is blurred vision now so no chance.

[grumpybastard]

Thanks everyone for your replies...

As Sully has suggested they could be Psychometric tests, I have done a heap of them on different topics and if its what they do use i will be okay.... (They are more real world based)

I imagine any maths will be at somewhere around the year 10 level, unfortunately it has been 23 years since i did year 10! :)

Trying to brush up on my algebra, trig, pi, Pythagoras etc at the moment... its not going well!

As for a slide rule :) Im not quite that old, but calculators were rather new in my day :)

[rovercare]

Wouldn't stress, I faildded year 10, now I iz a lektrishan:D

[blitz]

go to www.ee-oz.com.au (http://www.ee-oz.com.au)

they built the tests and they are on the front page of their website, you can do them as many times as you want

[grumpybastard]

Sorry for the slow reply, it seems everything has been competing for my time of late.

So an update of how it was...

The aptitude test was such a crock of $#!^ and so geared towards the school leaver it was just plain scary.

So I arrive at 8am (4 people didn't make it for the appointment, to early I guess?!?!) no surprises that everyone is in their very early 20's or younger and interestingly 1 girl too.

Chatting to one bloke who is 21 and he is very nervous about the maths component in the aptitude test because its been 3 years since he was at school! Eeek! I laughed and explained to him the last time i was at school was before he was born!

Any way first part is 10 mins to fill out a form about you, standard guff, name, address etc, then onto the questions, stuff like:

Describe your greatest work achievements..... (with room to write 2 sentences) My CV is 8 pages and only covers the last 10 years of my employment history!

List your sporting achievements and awards.... Sport? Ummmm? i've started playing lawn bowls recently with a few of the locals, because any sport you can play whilst having a beer at 1980's bar prices is a sport for me.. (I chose not to include this) Was so tempted to just take the ****! Sporting achievements? Perhaps a world class bull**** artist :)

And it just went down hill from here!

It really wasn't an aptitude test, there was no Psychometric tests at all, nothing mechanical, electrical, logic etc. No spelling (except filling in contact details)

Tests - 2x Maths and 1x Comprehension.

Comprehension i flew through no worries at all, but the Maths i was just to slow, 50 questions 20mins (24secs per question) if you didn't know the answer straight off you had no time to work through it.

So all in all i was disappointed with my result, next part is an interview this Friday.

I might need to practice wearing my pants half way down my arse and saying stuff like 'yo dude wassup?' or equivalent :)

[blitz]

go to www.ee-oz.com.au (http://www.ee-oz.com.au)
on their home page on the right hand side is the tests they are free and you can do them as many times as you want

ee-oz is the organisation that made the tests, you even get a score at the end and it shows you which ones you got wrong - it is very good

[isuzurover]

I might need to practice wearing my pants half way down my arse and saying stuff like 'yo dude wassup?' or equivalent :)

I know the feeling. I felt like I needed to do that after buying a nissan silvia turbo to fit to my landie.

I'm sure your score would have been better than average. Just turning up and writing your name is probably worth 50%!

[rovercare]

Sorry for the slow reply, it seems everything has been competing for my time of late.

So an update of how it was...

The aptitude test was such a crock of $#!^ and so geared towards the school leaver it was just plain scary.

So I arrive at 8am (4 people didn't make it for the appointment, to early I guess?!?!) no surprises that everyone is in their very early 20's or younger and interestingly 1 girl too.

Chatting to one bloke who is 21 and he is very nervous about the maths component in the aptitude test because its been 3 years since he was at school! Eeek! I laughed and explained to him the last time i was at school was before he was born!

Any way first part is 10 mins to fill out a form about you, standard guff, name, address etc, then onto the questions, stuff like:

Describe your greatest work achievements..... (with room to write 2 sentences) My CV is 8 pages and only covers the last 10 years of my employment history!

List your sporting achievements and awards.... Sport? Ummmm? i've started playing lawn bowls recently with a few of the locals, because any sport you can play whilst having a beer at 1980's bar prices is a sport for me.. (I chose not to include this) Was so tempted to just take the ****! Sporting achievements? Perhaps a world class bull**** artist :)

And it just went down hill from here!

It really wasn't an aptitude test, there was no Psychometric tests at all, nothing mechanical, electrical, logic etc. No spelling (except filling in contact details)

Tests - 2x Maths and 1x Comprehension.

Comprehension i flew through no worries at all, but the Maths i was just to slow, 50 questions 20mins (24secs per question) if you didn't know the answer straight off you had no time to work through it.

So all in all i was disappointed with my result, next part is an interview this Friday.

I might need to practice wearing my pants half way down my arse and saying stuff like 'yo dude wassup?' or equivalent :)


Maybe a little more focus on what you are doing as opposed to the others would have helped with a clear head:p

[Bigbjorn]

Maybe a little more focus on what you are doing as opposed to the others would have helped with a clear head:p

Sounds like the old Commonwealth Public Service exams. Tests of literacy, numeracy, speed, accuracy, and reasoning. In theory only the best 10% of examinees could complete the papers in the allotted time.

[Roy G]

It will be helpful to have a basic knowledge about electrotechnology. I found this article explains it quite well about the Electrotechnology : UEE22011 - Certificate II in Electrotechnology Darwin (https://www.ausinet.com.au/certificate-ii-in-electrotechnology-darwin/)

[Tins]

We used to do sine, cosine etc from books :o no calculators

Ivan

Log tables were so much fun. The only calculator we used was a slide rule...

[Tins]

This bloke might help..

tecmath - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7w5aTnt7YeXBcVCY0mgFw)

[V8Ian]

Holy thread revival Batman! Over ten years, GB's probably on the aged pension now, at least changed careers. :spudnikconfounded:

[ramblingboy42]

Log tables were so much fun. The only calculator we used was a slide rule...

When I did my final Engineering Trade Science exams all computations had to be done on slide rule. Calculators were out by then and we were checked entering the exam room to ensure we didn't "cheat" with a calculator.
Next year they were allowed to use them.