I am interviewing for a conductor position for BNSF and was wondering what the aptitude test was like?
The test I had was basically just to see if you had common sense. There were a variety of tests from grammar, to math, to mechanical diagrams. Some of the grammar questions were lines of addresses in two columns. Some were the same in each column and other had subtle differences, like missing number, inverted letters, extra letters. You had to point out which were the same or different. I think the main purpose of the grammar test was weed out those whose were poor at reading or had any learning/reading disorders like dyslexia. The math part was just like some school test questions, again nothing you need a calculator for but the type of questions to prove you could do math in your head. The mechanical diagrams were actually fun to do. There was one with a rope going through a bunch of pulleys and you had to label the direction of rotation of the pulleys if the rope was pulled. Others were like if a bulldozer was making a right turn, which track has to travel faster. This was to weed out people who aren’t mechanically inclinded. They never gave us the results, but I got hired…
They gave you your results. Congradulations!
Their are 2 math tests (1) basic math and the other one is story math i.e. if suzy has 5 apples and gives carl 2 how many apples does suzy have, a reading test and a how well do you play with others.
Good luck
Rodney
I have some experience with Canadian Military aptitude tests, and suggest that you will be required to function at the Grade 9-10 General (vice academic stream) Level in verbal reasoning, computation, and perhaps diagramming or reading charts and tables…depending on how the test items are validated for the selection criteria.
Normally these tests are meant to determine your “learning ability”, or the speed at which you can master what you must in the classroom in the limited time they can offer you. It turns out that aptitude tests, that seemingly measure what you already know, or can do, correlate highly to a measure of learning speed. You can be assured that the cut-off score (to select or not select) is usually somewhere near the 30% percentile of the population at large…not very high. Of course, it all depends on what they want for a cut-off score. It may have been useful to limit all but 10% of applicants, historically, to a cut-off representing the 60%ile. That means that of all writers in a given year, 59% of the population of test subjects score at or below that cut-off mark.
Good luck, however it works in this case.