Fast Stream 2012

I've noticed some people saying they came in the x percentile for the tests, how do you know this?

Fuming!!! I sat down to do the practice online assessment this evening, with a view to taking the online tests themselves in the next couple of days.

So, first of all, the practice online numeric reasoning test...oh my god, difficult!!!! But I was feeling very 50/50 about how it had gone for me, felt confident about some of the questions and very shaky about others.

So I got to the end of the test, clicked the last answer and clicked next...and nothing happened! It told me to click next to get my score but nada! So after a couple of minutes and a couple of tries I refreshed the page and I got a message on screen saying 'you have already completed this test'. So I didn't get to find out my score after all that!

Went back to my online account homepage and although it does say that I have completed the practice assessments it hasn't given me a deadline to complete the real assessments and it won't allow me to click through and do the real assessments now either. I've just fired off a message to the online help desk but they are only open Mon - Fri, 8am-6pm. Grrrr!!!

Which makes me wonder what happens when people have online problems and it's the weekend and their deadline to get a section finished is midnight on a Saturday night?? My laptop is in good nick and my internet connection is fine, so god knows what happened...ghosts in the machine?? Presumably won't hear anything until Monday now and no idea if they'll even be able to give me my score
I really would have preferred to know how I'd done on the practice test before I have to take the real one...

Applying this year... I'm worried about numerical reasoning, I'm just so slow at it! Don't know what to do really, I feel I have no hope of getting through the assessments! I'm great at verbal and I can do the maths I just can't do it fast enough! Tips?

Practice practice practice! The test is pretty much all interpreting data (tables, bar charts) and extrapolating percentages. None of that stuff requires much intelligence to do correctly if you have enough time, so it's just about speeding up. And every time you practice you will get faster as you get more familiar with it.

I know it's not much fun to do, but it's really the only and the best thing to do. The actual maths is no higher than GCSE grade C level - you just need to get completely familiar with it.

Fantastic I'm really excited about this because it's one of the few career options I've been really enthusiastic about applying for - working in Parliament would be amazing! Do you know what the success rate is, how difficult it is to get a place? I want to know if I shoud be scoping out other options as an insurance at this point (First year English student at Leeds Uni).

The Fast Stream is statistically a long shot: according to the recruitment report for 2010 there were 21761 applications and 465 offered places, a success rate of 2.1%.

However there are other jobs in Westminster. I know a fair few people from Leeds who are working in Westminster, they aren't in the Civil Service though they are working for MPs or lobby groups, the POLIS department in Leeds has good links with MPs and there are a lot of students doing placements. The http://www.w4mpjobs.org/ website has info about various opportunities to work in Westminster.

Also bear in mind this MA that is done in Leeds which specifically gives students experience in Westminster. If working in Westminster is something that interests you and you want some advice on how to get work experience there etc then I would say contact Ed Gouge or Stuart McAnulla in the POLIS dept as they ran that MA (from memory) and Ed had all the contacts.

Just done the tests - actually found the maths easier than I was expecting - managed to complete the whole test, which is unusual for me. Only a couple of guesses near the end.

Verbal I found quite difficult actually - I've been focusing so much on maths practice and just assuming my verbal would be all right that I didn't really think about it too much. I found I was saying cannot say a lot of the time - I really hope my verbal doesn't let me down.

And now the impatient wait for results.

What other things have people been applying for by the way? I've submitted to a few HR graduate schemes - not sure if it's what I really want to do but it's experience of app processes at least.

Hi everyone!

Chrry - I'm also applying for the Northern Ireland Fast Stream, I'm glad to find someone else who is! Just tried my practice tests today, I've done a number of these tests before for other programmes but find that the one's for this are exceptionally difficult!

While I was pleased to achieve the top 15% in the verbal reasoning self assessment test, like others here, I was a bit disappointed to see that my first self-assessed numerical test came out at 'top 45%'. It says that you have a 'reasonable chance' of getting through, but without any meaningful comparison I'm not sure if they're just being polite! Does it ever say "You will not get through?" :P

I'm not sure if anyone else also found it strange (or whether it is even the same for other schemes) but I thought it slightly unhelpful that the 'self assessed tests' told you how you fared against others, but no accompanying score, whereas the second 'practice tests' gave you a score but no idea as to how this would rank against anyone else.

My practice test scores tonight were 25/32 and 10/15 respectively, but I'm not at all sure if I did better or worse than when I was ranked in self assessment. Would 25/30 be around top 15%..? Would 10/15 be akin to top 45%...? Who knows, because I certainly don't!

I'm assuming, with a little dread, that perhaps only the top 30% or 25% get through. I guess even if that was the case there would be no point worrying myself and just trying my best! Then again, I am on a forum full of like-minded worriers :P

Please chip in if you have a better grasp than me!

For people who've got their results, did you get an email notification or do you have to manually log into the website everyday and check to see if it has changed?

Haha, well I completed the tests today, but didn't get through. For the life of me I couldn't get my head round those stupid verbal reasoning tests. I don't get how people find them so easy but then get in a flap over the numerical tests that feature things like multiplying numbers together.

Ahhhhhhh still nothing. Took them 8th October