2020 Executive Officer Civil Service

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

floorpie wrote: »

Personally I thought every one of the questions was similarly vague, even for more simple calculations.

The "cost of interviewers per day" one was so awful even though it was just addition/multiplication.

IMO they're not appropriate questions for a general intake of EOs.

One of the questions on that set baffled me for ages. Had half a page of scribbled calculations and then all of a sudden my brain just did something by itself and got an answer without having to do a single sum

Govannan

floorpie wrote: »

Personally I thought every one of the questions was similarly vague, even for more simple calculations.

The "cost of interviewers per day" one was so awful even though it was just addition/multiplication.

IMO they're not appropriate questions for a general intake of EOs.

Yeah spent a bit of time on that one, although I felt like I was making progress and understood it the whole time, so I didn't mind it.

Eod100

You'd understand if it was specifically for EO in Revenue say but not sure unless you're in a finance/procurement role in another dept that you would need to those sums anyway regularly.

Wonderstruck

Eod100 wrote: »

You'd understand if it was specifically for EO in Revenue say but not sure unless you're in a finance/procurement role in another dept that you would need to those sums anyway regularly.

I would be more like: let me check Wolfram Alpha than frantically try to do the sums while being watched on a webcam in under 2 mins! All we can do now is wait anyways

Beleg Cuthalion

Glad to see a few more people struggled a bit! Well not exactly happy people found it tough but you know what I mean.
I’m just out of isolation today after returning from Canada, and we had no wifi as the place we isolated in hadn’t been lived in full time for a few months. Felt it was a lack of prep on my part but I did find a lot of the questions vague too. Really feel like I made a mess of it. All we can do is put it out of our minds and hope now 😀 good luck everyone 😀

Always number 1

floorpie wrote: »

Personally I thought every one of the questions was similarly vague, even for more simple calculations.

The "cost of interviewers per day" one was so awful even though it was just addition/multiplication.

IMO they're not appropriate questions for a general intake of EOs.

The interviews one really flummoxed me but I'm hoping I did enough on the rest to get me over the line.
May have made a balls of it with the verification at the start (because I rotated the laptop with me holding it instead of me holding it and rotating with it) so it may all have been for nowt

floorpie

Always number 1 wrote: »

The interviews one really flummoxed me but I'm hoping I did enough on the rest to get me over the line.
May have made a balls of it with the verification at the start (because I rotated the laptop with me holding it instead of me holding it and rotating with it) so it may all have been for nowt

Honestly doubt the verification stuff will matter much unless a person was genuinely cheating, don't worry about it.

EireinOZ

Does anybody know what the e tray test is ?

AvaSatiVaLomu

I strolled through the verbal section in about ten minutes...but when I checked the clock during the back end of the maths section it was over an hour later!

The time fairly flies when you're flummoxed ��*♂️

It was my first CS test, live and learn I suppose

MFPM

EireinOZ wrote: »

Does anybody know what the e tray test is ?

Basically you are in a virtual office environment, you are assigned various tasks such as responding to emails and messages - some of them you're told have to be dealt with by a certain time. There is normally one big task that you have to complete in the time allotted - it could be something like devise a timetable for a conference where you're given a list of invited speakers who have a multitude of time constraints and you have to place them into appropoarite slots that suit them.

It's basically to test you multi-tasking under pressure.

Yazzy124

Does anyone know if the camera was recording for the duration of the test or just the three times the camera came on.

MagaBot

Does anyone know if the camera was recording for the duration of the test or just the three times the camera came on.

Impossible to tell because the camera activity light can be disabled regardless if the camera is actually in use or not.

I had a question asking how much an employee would need to contribute to tax on a car given that the employer contributes X amount. There was a formula included on the page but the formula made absolutely no sense to me and produced astronomically high figures any way I tried to work it, so I just guessed that one and moved on.

I also had this question and had no clue what to do with it.

I got this question too... pure guess... anyone get the graph about cities that completed company training, london Cardiff etc, it was a weighted sideways graph... im sure not the technical term but it was cuck!!

In this question if I recall correctly, I asked which city was above 70% and you could only choose one option. But on the graph, 3 of the cities were over 70%. Wtf was up with that?

Nekarsulm

Eod100 wrote: »

You'd understand if it was specifically for EO in Revenue say but not sure unless you're in a finance/procurement role in another dept that you would need to those sums anyway regularly.

Even if you were in a procurement role in a department, your work would mainly revolve around which of the 20 or so VAT rates to apply, with holding tax etc., and checking that the CO had got it right before you OK it.

StevenToast

MagaBot wrote: »

Impossible to tell because the camera activity light can be disabled regardless if the camera is actually in use or not.



I also had this question and had no clue what to do with it.



In this question if I recall correctly, I asked which city was above 70% and you could only choose one option. But on the graph, 3 of the cities were over 70%. Wtf was up with that?

I remember thinking that....but it was a trick of the mind...some were over 70 alright but the total number of employees were over 100 in some cities...therefore the percentage was less than 70%

Quadrivium

fionnr01 wrote: »

I got this question too... pure guess... anyone get the graph about cities that completed company training, london Cardiff etc, it was a weighted sideways graph... im sure not the technical term but it was cuck!!

Yeah, those graphs were a bit of a nightmare, not easy to read if you've never been exposed to them before.

Furious-Red

StevenToast wrote: »

I remember thinking that....but it was a trick of the mind...some were over 70 alright but the total number of employees were over 100 in some cities...therefore the percentage was less than 70%

Yea for that question i wrote down the full amount of employees , then got the number of people who had completed the training by week 4 or whatever it was. Then divided it by full amount and multiplied it by 100. Again i could have gotten it completely wrong.

Did anyone get the questions involving the table with different areas and the population or subscriptions i think between 2012 - 2016 - 2020.

Quadrivium

Furious-Red wrote: »

Yea for that question i wrote down the full amount of employees , then got the number of people who had completed the training by week 4 or whatever it was. Then divided it by full amount and multiplied it by 100. Again i could have gotten it completely wrong.

Did anyone get the questions involving the table with different areas and the population or subscriptions i think between 2012 - 2016 - 2020.

Yeah, I think I got the same, very tricky.

Rikand

Are we allowed to talk about the questions we got on the test ? Would that not be considered sharing information we shouldnt be ?

I know we all have anonymous handles, but for some of us, this is not our first rodeo with campaigns and we could be recognisable lol

Quadrivium

Rikand wrote: »

Are we allowed to talk about the questions we got on the test ? Would that not be considered sharing information we shouldnt be ?

I know we all have anonymous handles, but for some of us, this is not our first rodeo with campaigns and we could be recognisable lol

This part of the competition is done and dusted, I doubt it would make any difference at this stage.

Rikand

Quadrivium wrote: »

This part of the competition is done and dusted, I doubt it would make any difference at this stage.

They might reuse the same question bank in future campaigns

mayo londoner

Would you be using Excel for the e tray test?

Divisadero

Re the e-tray I posted the following on another thread. I have done these twice before in PAS most recently last year. There are examples online but in my experience unlike general aptitude tests (e.g. numerical reasoning) they are not something you can really prepare for. Each one is different. It's just a matter of focus and keeping an eye on the clock. Try to complete as much of the main tasks as you can and submit everything you have done before time runs out. Don't do one task perfectly and ignore the other. Make a decent stab at both.

The usual format in the past has been two main tasks e.g. compiling information for and drafting a fairly complex letter and organising a schedule for a conference. During the exercise some changes will be requested and you will have to adapt. Also you will get an occasional message on other relatively minor unrelated matters.

As I said try to keep a cool head and get as much of the main tasks completed as you can. Like all tests the e-tray suits some and not others. But pay attention to what you are asked and focus and you should be fine.

fionnr01

Furious-Red wrote: »

Yea for that question i wrote down the full amount of employees , then got the number of people who had completed the training by week 4 or whatever it was. Then divided it by full amount and multiplied it by 100. Again i could have gotten it completely wrong.

Did anyone get the questions involving the table with different areas and the population or subscriptions i think between 2012 - 2016 - 2020.

yes i think i did.. was it mobile phones? I found that one ok.. I think.. Memories are fading fast

redmgar

mayo londoner wrote: »

Would you be using Excel for the e tray test?

Its all on an internal programme that PAS have. The spreadsheet is basic where you just arrange appointments into different times based on certain criteria.

That was last year however, this year could be completely different.

fionnr01

redmgar wrote: »

Its all on an internal programme that PAS have. The spreadsheet is basic where you just arrange appointments into different times based on certain criteria.

That was last year however, this year could be completely different.

Do the practice sites have similar type programmes?

redmgar

I don't remember seeing any, but its not something you can prepare for.
It tests your organisational and problem solving skills, so you either have it or don't.
Its not that difficult to pass.

MFPM

mayo londoner wrote: »

Would you be using Excel for the e tray test?

I've done two e-trays and excel has never been part of them.

Govannan

fionnr01 wrote: »

Do the practice sites have similar type programmes?

There's one on assessmentday

https://www.assessmentday.co.uk/e-tray-exercise.htm

No idea how similar it is to the one we'll need to sit though.

Dublintigger

Green farmer wrote: »

Did a practice one online a month or two ago, found it hard enough, think I got 44% first attempt. Arranging schedules for meetings under severe time constraints and picking best /worse options. They then explained how you should have done it. More to it then I realised. Hopefully if we do get to the next round, their might be some practice material available

Can you please post where you got the sample tests from so we can all practice.
Thanks 😊

gestappo

Lads, every stage of the 2020 EO comp has been overhauled, so expect the e-tray to be completely different to previous years too.

Expect the worse!