NHS Scientist Training Programme 2016 applicants!

I don't really see where anyone has given anyone an unfair advantage. Surely stating that they didn't really understand some of the economical terms doesn't really give anyone an advantage as it doesn't give away anything specific? People are always going to ask for examples, but as far as I can see no one has given any away.

Hey, it has always been the 12th as far as I am aware. The tests are until the 15th.

Can someone help me with this practice question please? I can't even see a previous month!!!

Few tips guys from when I sat the tests.

Numerical - For my test the maths was simple but near impossible to do in the time frame given. You get 3 questions associated with 4 tables. The first question for each table you get 90 seconds and then for the remaining 2 questions you get 75 seconds. I didn't have an economic table so I can't really comment on that. Just try and improve you basic mental maths to try and save you some time.

Logical - The practice questions are similar to what you get on the test. Just practise loads of them you can find a few online. They are similar to the UKCAT ones so you could use them in your practise. There is always one box without any shapes in it and they want you to work out the pattern in that box looking at the rules associated with the other boxes. The questions get really hard towards the end which I found near impossible to do but I guess that means I was getting some right.

If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them. Good luck everyone

Do you mean the UKCAT abstract reasoning tests? Aren't those much harder because they are logic mixed with a distracting figure to confuse you? These ones are meant to be more straightforward logic...
Thanks for your post - really helpful best of luck!

Yes but if you can do them then the logical ones on the test will be a peice of cake 😀. even if you google logical reasoning tests there are tons that come up that are great to practice. Hope this helps 😀

Wow, just done both online tests. Was super nervous before as (I'm sure like everyone) I really want to get through to them actually reading my application!

They were quite hard but they are supposed to be challenging. The online practice tests definitely gives you a false sense of security.

I didn't get any economic related questions- maybe it's a sign I didn't do super fantastic!

Here's hoping! Good luck to the rest of you!!

Hi. I know a lot of people have put down about referees, I can see why now it is a little complicated. Above each of the referee options it says Employment (or Training Post) 1, 2, 3 etc. This surely doesn't mean that we actually have to put a reference down from each of our previous employments? I've been in my current position about 4 years, I don't even have contact details for my previous line manager let alone my position before that!!

Also it says to make sure you tell them beforehand, but I kind of didn't want to tell my supervisor before I was a bit more certain that I might get a bit further along the process. Do you think it is actually quite late that they contact them? OR do they contact them fairly early in the process?

Thanks

Hey guys, first time applying to the STP this year. Not looking for any direct pointers on the aptitude tests, but one quick question. Is the Logical Reasoning test a mixture of all types of logical reasoning? Or is it just diagrammatic? Im far, far better at the diagrammatic stuff so Im hoping thats the case!

Can someone help me with this practice question please? I can't even see a previous month!!!

Or how would someone go about calculating this one in an easiest way?? I'm so scared of these tests, I don;t even know how I passed them last year

The month it's talking about is the month it gives you. You need to add the first 3 columns together to get the values it wants.

Is 75 seconds the total amount of time or had you used some already? I timed myself and with a calculator it took me more like 90s to do the calculations per row.

A better method was to round them and add because that only took 30-40s. You end up with the most expensive one at 23k, then two rows at 22k, but I had enough time to look at them in more detail and find the correct answer (they want the 2nd most, not the 1st most). This is a better method because you can quickly narrow your results down without wasting time on pointless calculations.



You have to compare the 3rd column (yearly price) to the 1st column + 2nd column. It wants to know which row has a value where 1 + 2 is greater than 7% of the 3rd row.

Be aware that the 3rd column is in £ but the first 2 are in pence. This makes it easier because you need to multiply by 100 to convert to pennies, but also divide by 100 (and multiply by 7) to find 7%, so essentially you can just multiply the 3rd column by 7 and compare to columns 1 + 2.

So, for example, the first row: 45 + 15 = 60
14*7 = 98
is 60 > 98? no, move on.
You should only get one row where this works.

The maths for this one is much faster than the previous question because the two columns are easy to add.

Hope this helps.
(disclaimer: i haven't looked at any practice papers yet, and i haven't taken the test yet, so take my advice with a grain of salt.)