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Literacy/Numeracy Tests on Interview Day?!

Hi everyone,

I have three upcoming interviews for a post-16 and further education PGCE (first two are tomorrow and Tuesday). For the two next week, I have to do both literacy and numeracy skills tests. I've spent the most of my time preparing for interviews by preparing for the teaching tasks and individual interviews, only cramming in a bit of Maths revision these past couple of days.

I absolutely hate Maths although I did achieve C at GCSE in it when I did my exams. I've booked in for my QTS tests and given myself a month until I have to do those so I can spend a lot of time revising. My specialism is English so I'm not too concerned about literacy but I recently read somewhere that someone had been turned down for places because of bad results on these interview day tests! I'm now super nervous and worried, as I've done some basic preparation but not had the time to really go through my GCSE Maths again as I've been more focused on other things.

Personally I think it seems really unfair to make us do two lots of tests, during the interview and Professional Skills. Surely it would make sense to assess our potential abilities on the day through activities and interview? I've just not had enough time to brush up on numeracy for the interview day and was hoping I could try my best and then ace the tests in February, once the interviews were out of the way.

Now I'm worried that this could be the reason I wouldn't get onto a course :frown:

I'm confident apart from this daft test...

Anyone have any advice or been to interviews recently and done these tests on the day? I have interviews at Hallam and Edge Hill. I have another later on in the month but thankfully no numeracy tests, only a written task.

Thanks so much.
At the interviews I've been to they stressed that the literacy tests were not used as an entrance exam but to gauge where you are with writing at Master's level. So they 'say' it won't stop them offering you a place on the day.

The two I have experienced involved being given an article/research paper about general education or more specific to your subject and writing about it. It wasn't too bad.

I've not had to do a maths test on an interview day though.
I had to do literacy and numeracy tests as part of my interview. I think it's pretty common from the amount of interviewees mentioning them. My test was no harder than KS2 as I'm primary. I'm curious what maths would be tested for a post 16 PGCE. Can you contact the Uni for further clarification? I wouldn't worry too much, they'd rate your interview and activity skills higher than how you did on the test I would have thought.
Original post by alexandrajade3
Hi everyone,

I have three upcoming interviews for a post-16 and further education PGCE (first two are tomorrow and Tuesday). For the two next week, I have to do both literacy and numeracy skills tests. I've spent the most of my time preparing for interviews by preparing for the teaching tasks and individual interviews, only cramming in a bit of Maths revision these past couple of days.

I absolutely hate Maths although I did achieve C at GCSE in it when I did my exams. I've booked in for my QTS tests and given myself a month until I have to do those so I can spend a lot of time revising. My specialism is English so I'm not too concerned about literacy but I recently read somewhere that someone had been turned down for places because of bad results on these interview day tests! I'm now super nervous and worried, as I've done some basic preparation but not had the time to really go through my GCSE Maths again as I've been more focused on other things.

Personally I think it seems really unfair to make us do two lots of tests, during the interview and Professional Skills. Surely it would make sense to assess our potential abilities on the day through activities and interview? I've just not had enough time to brush up on numeracy for the interview day and was hoping I could try my best and then ace the tests in February, once the interviews were out of the way.

Now I'm worried that this could be the reason I wouldn't get onto a course :frown:

I'm confident apart from this daft test...

Anyone have any advice or been to interviews recently and done these tests on the day? I have interviews at Hallam and Edge Hill. I have another later on in the month but thankfully no numeracy tests, only a written task.

Thanks so much.



I have had a numeracy and literacy test during my interview which was too a ks2 level numeracy test. I have known people have a secondary and college pgce interview and they have had a numeracy test. The numeracy test was gcse level (just like the professional skills tests). Have you done maaths at a-level? If so, they may expect you to know some a-level type maths questions and they may incorporate these in, but if you haven't then it will only be gcse level from what I have experienced.

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