
Tips & Tricks
Coach's thoughts on careers, work, psychometric testing & preparation; check out some "personal" views on the developments in job testing, recruitment policies, careers and other news!
Use Your Brain, Not Your Calculator

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Weighted Averages – Redressing the Balance
Here’s a little problem that I’ve seen in Numerical Analysis questions which shouldn’t cause a problem but somehow does.
Maybe it’s the wording that throws some of you; I’m not sure. I’m referring to weighted averages. It’s easiest to look at an example to explain what I mean...
Equality for All: A Mismatch of Data
I would like to address in this article an issue that I have seen crop up many times in the UKCAT Numerical Analysis questions.
I have written other articles about order of magnitude issues but this addresses a particular problem. Let’s look at an example...
What the ‘F’ is that...?!
I’ve written before about the importance of reading the question carefully and I cannot stress this strongly enough.
You can practise all you like for your Numerical Reasoning tests and become so adept at percentages that you finish your exam with minutes to spare. But, if you have not read the question carefully and you have answered the wrong question then all of your hard work will be for nothing.
The Billion Dollar Question: What is a Billion?
So how much is actually a billion?
Time and time again a little niggle arises in some of the psychometric numerical reasoning questions that causes a little consternation for some people.
The short answer to the question in the title is, ‘it all depends on where you live.’ The trouble here is that some countries have adopted what is sometimes called a ‘short scale’ billion...
What Usain Bolt and Psychometric test success have in common: Speed
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about estimating answers in psychometric tests and, I daresay, it won’t be the last.
This is because it is important – in fact, essential. Usain Bolt has won several Olympic medals by being extremely fast... and you can win a new job by being sufficiently fast to beat most other candidates.
Only after you! Or the true meaning of the Order of Precedence
Only after you! Or the true meaning of the "Order of Precedence"
We have been in touch with hundreds of psychometric test takers and job candidates who train hard to improve their numerical reasoning skills. One issue that keeps coming back is something that should be ingrained into everybody at a very early age but it is still causing a few problems for many: the order of precedence.
You certainly know the order of precedence of operators when doing calculations but when you’re using a calculator you need to be dead sure.
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