Is it more important for a PE to be fast or error free?

They didn't have a name for it. It was a standard physcometric test though.

Jack- of course it's more important to be error free.
The test was multiple choice.They include accuracy in the testing, so guessing on the last 10 questions in the last 20s could hurt your score.

Attention to detail is obviously unimportant for engineers.

I'll review it if u get it to me, Diablito.

That would be great, thank you! can you pm me your email?

My first job I made $3.25 *brag*

just wondering, what were the answer options and what did you answer?

The thing is that with multiple choice tests like this is that you look at the answers first and eliminate the wrong ones as opposed to finding the exact answer.

For example:

88.4*33.6=
a. 2111.24
b. 7440.24
c. 12110.24
d. 2970.24

You don't actually figure out the answer itself - that takes too long. You get no direct hints given that you should already know .6 * .4 will end in .24 (which all of the answers end with to make it difficult for you).

So you eliminate answers you know can't be correct. You don't actually multiply the two numbers given - you multiply two much easier numbers depending on the question and answers given (for example in this question: 90*30 works) and simplify from there. You know 90*33 will be higher than the 90*30 you picked (the quickly figured out 2700) and obviously 2700 is much lower than b. so you pick d. and go from there. You don't actually need to know that the answer is 2970.24 - and you're not expected to figure it out. You're expected to quickly figure out which of the answers is correct given the other answers.

Fwiw the entire thought process for this question should take less than 5 seconds for someone reasonably apt to deal with the problem.

As someone who has taken (and administered) multiple tests like this - the parameters are set out well in advance. The purpose of the exams isn't to figure out who can multiply numbers together quickly or to answer simple logic questions; it's to see who can use intuition, logic and undescribable aptitude to solve these problems quicker than the average bear.

Thinking outside the box critically is an unteachable trait that is very valuable to specific trades like engineers, human resource managers and air traffic controllers.

<1% chance this happened like you said it did, Assani.

Mech/Chem E Grads make an absolute minimum of 60k fresh out of school with no experience. THAT BARLEY MONEY.

Thanks for the primer on mansplaining, grando.

No disrespect, but you probably could have prepared for this test doing SAT (or similar) math workbooks. Most of those problems have simple tricks -- like dividing 7 by .33 to find out what 7 is 33% of -- that you probably knew 15 years ago, and could solve fine today without a time constraint.

It's funny because 2.2 might contain the highest concentration of people on the internet that actually understand this line of thought.

It's also pretty funny that I could explain the concept to people that "get it" in ten words, but the thousand I used to explain it to people that "don't get it" isn't nearly enough.

grando,
but where is the explanation for how women are supposed to figure out those types of problems?

When I was trying to get on to a graduate scheme after university I had to do a few numerical critical reasoning tests. I found these a fair amount tougher than the type of tests being described above.

Examples:

http://www.numericalreasoningtest.org/

No disrespect, but if you need to use a trick to answer "7 is 33% of what #?" instead of just instantly knowing the answer, you should probably not be giving advice.

I wouldn't have known it to be 21.21... had I not done it a few times in a workbook and learned a pattern. My advice is still sound, but perhaps you are right and I should give less of it.

The answer is 700/33

I scored high enough on the test and have a phone interview today!

Good luck!

Thanks!

I'm through to the next round of interviews, and the position pays in the low 90s! I have to take another test tomorrow.

Mlylt,

Good luck, I hope they don't hate women!

Omg I just took the second test and it was hard. There were only 5 math questions the rest were unscrambling words and vocabulary-I guessed on everyone of these. Spelling and unscrambling words is the absolute worst thing to ask me to do! I think I made a 5 on this test; I got all the math and that's it. Uggh

They can't expect engineers to be unscrambling goddam words!