Let me start by saying, whether you’re already in a job, looking to change a job or looking to find a job, Happy workers day! We all deserve a huge pat on the back and a breather much longer than one day! 

Last time, we looked at the importance of aptitude tests and tried to disabuse your mind of the many myths you may have heard or formed about them.  The importance of demystifying these tests is related to the typical state of our minds.  Things we do not understand and cannot explain often get roped into the mythical, the result of which is a hodgepodge of all manners of wrong assumptions and deductions.  The deeper you stay in that state, the harder the challenge becomes to conquer. You can hardly conquer what you despise or don’t understand.

If you’re reading this, perhaps you have been at the receiving end of a negative test score result.  The good news is that there are a couple of things if you did right, might be useful in stemming an embarrassing reoccurrence.

Be positive

It’s no use thinking the test was designed in hell and the recruiter is the devil.  The more you revel in that level of incredulous thinking, the quicker the probability of your continued failure escalates…exponentially.  There’s also no point imagining that everyone taking the test with you are superhuman academic maniacs.  They’re mostly just as nervous as you are, perhaps better able to conceal it.  From preparation to taking the test itself, arm yourself with a positive attitude, a “can-do” spirit, never harbouring failure as an option.  Convince yourself “I can do this” and focus less on things beyond your control.  A defeatist mindset gets and keeps you jittery and unsure of yourself even before you get a chance to see the test.  Its outcome is never pretty.  Go with a great positive attitude, charged up to throw the best punches and come out the victor at the other end.  If you do find yourself jostling for the same job with Albert Einstein however, what can I say…tough luck!

Simulate the test environment in practice

Practice is the key to success on any test. Not just any kind of practice, but a well orchestrated, focused practice.  Like a boxer, throw your punches at a punching bag or a sparring partner to horn your skills before taking on Mayweather!  Find out how the test is going to be conducted, paper or Computer based and simulate your practice around that to familiarize yourself with the touch and feel of the test.  You’re likely to be more successful if you practice on a computer for a computer based test and on paper for a paper based one. Find out if calculators are allowed, and what kind and adapt your preparation accordingly.  Practice shading on paper if your test will use paper shading.  It’s about half a second faster to write an answer letter than to shade, so if you are practicing with writing answer letters while your test requires shading, you will appear to yourself to be faster and this can cost you a good number of minutes on the real test.

Practice to improve your speed

I touched on this in the previous issue.  The name of the game is speed and accuracy.  How many questions can you get right in the limited time?  Honestly, I cannot help you much with accuracy. If you can’t figure out that 40% of 300 cannot be less than 50 or more than 200, then try a simpler profession…one that doesn’t require aptitude tests. Stuff like that, you either have the intellectual capacity to know it, or you don’t.  In reality, I find from my experience that most graduates don’t have a real problem about knowing it, the problem really is the limited time.  

So what should you do? Practice with a strict time scale.  Try to figure out how much time you need for each question in the actual test (this in itself is a test of aptitude) and apply this to your practice. 50 questions in 30 minutes works out to about 35 seconds for instance. Try to ensure you’re not spending more than that time averagely per question. If you are using the computer based testing, it will monitor the total time automatically, but you have to time yourself with a stopwatch or timer if you are using a paper based test. Note that computer based tests may not monitor individual question time for you. The onus is on you to manage that bit. Do not practice with a test that allows more time per question than the real test. If possible, use tests with stricter or shorter time frames. You may not be fast oraccurate enough at the beginning, but I guarantee that you will improve with practice.

Practice with focus on weak areas

Typically, you will have some part of the test on lock down, while other parts might seem overly challenging.  Don’t consider just your aggregate score, but analyze your results to identify the pattern of questions you appear to be continually getting wrong.  Perhaps your percentages are fine, but your application of ratios isn’t working, or you are able to complete sentences but cannot accurately identify which statements are true or false. You want to focus on that area of weakness when practicing for your test.  Overloading yourself with many practice tests will not do much if you are not getting the required improvement in speed and accuracy.

Practice Elimination & Skipping

Nobody finishes an aptitude test, especially numerical ones using traditional calculation methods.  Most who do well are excellent at eliminating and skipping.  Eliminate the options that look most implausible and look at the others. There will be one right answer, one or more good options and one or more implausible ones.  Eliminate the most unlikely, and then test for the other ones. You have a fairer chance of completing the question in shorter time this way…but it requires some practice.

As for skipping, once you have worked out how long each question should take you, and you find you are spending an inordinate amount of time on a particular one, note it, skip it and move on to the next question.  Aim to get to the end of your test and then return to the skipped questions for a closer look.  The trick here is that because our minds are wired to think that things become progressively challenging, we fall into the trap of assuming that the next questions are going to be harder than the earlier ones (logic: since 1 is less than 2, question one must be easier than question 2) so we get stuck there thinking “oh my God…if I cannot answer this one, I must not be able to answer the others following!”  Well, the test designers are aware of your unfortunate mind logic and use it to their advantage.  So I’m letting you into a secret…Questions with varying levels of difficulty are spread all over the test material. Go figure.

 

In my next article, I will share a few more thoughts on common mistakes people make when taking aptitude tests. In the meantime, here’s hoping you have some information that can help you get a few extra marks on that next test.  Share your success stories with me on twitter @deji_ogunnubi.

All the best!

Deji Ogunnubi