Airline Pilot Central Forums - DL Hiring: New Process

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flymeaway (Post 3313719)

I just took the assessment after practicing with the Cut-E for a few days and thought I'd give an after action report.

Reaction speed: The actual assessment was much easier than the practice. First, the images are closer together, which helps, then if the images are correct, they stay up for 5 seconds or until you click, so you don't have to be so worried about missing them if they're close but you don't click right away. Still glad I practiced though.

Monitoring ability: Pretty close to the practice. I'm really glad I practiced since once you get more than about 8, it gets pretty hard. Or it did for me anyway. Practicing helped a lot.

Spatial orientation: Just mentally transposing a fixed card ADF onto a DG. You're on the tail of the needle. Exactly the same as the practice.

Multi-tasking: This one was a bit different than practice in several key ways. The airplane is at the bottom of the screen on the left side and 4 objects are falling towards it. You click on the airplane to move it, and this is important, when you release the mouse button, all of the objects fall very quickly and you get more objects up top. I eventually learned to hold the mouse button in while doing the math problem and duplicate identification problem in my head, then releasing the mouse. This gave me plenty of time to click the answers and get back to the plane. Second, the practice takes away the problems on the right side of the screen after so many seconds. So if you're too slow, it's just gone. The real assessment doesn't do this. I imagine the faster you do it the better, but your problem won't go away until you click an answer. Third, in the practice, the math problems are either correct, or wildly incorrect. Since there was such a time crunch, I learned to click correct if I thought the answer was within 3 or 4 and I was always correct if I was in time. In the real assessment, not only is the time less restrictive, but the math answers are all either correct, or 1 off. I missed several early because the practice taught me to click correct if it was close, and you can't do the real assessment that way.

Complex control: Significantly different as well. First, in the practice you couldn't alter your speed (or I couldn't figure out how to anyway). In the real assessment you can. It will automatically make you go faster and faster, but you can click some keys to adjust it. I did the real assessment's practice a few times to determine how fast was too fast and which objects were more difficult and required me to slow down. The objects themselves rotate much slower than many of the ones in the Cut-E did, and the objects aren't so unusual either. The real assessment was certainly easier than the practice, but I did feel the practice was helpful. I wish the assessment was more clear on how they graded this section though. It's not clear whether it's better to go slow so as to ensure you never crash, or go fast to get through as many obstacles as possible even though you risk a crash or two.

Sudoku: This was significantly different as well. In the Cut-E, you only need to fill in one row or column, and it's not like sudoku where there's only one right answer. So long as you fill in the one row or column that includes the highlighted square, and you don't duplicate anything in any rows or columns, you win. Often there are multiple solutions that work. Once I figured this out, I could get through all 15 in 3 minutes or so and I thought I had that test figured out. In the real assessment, though, it's different. There indeed is only one solution, and there's no need to fill in an entire row or column. Additionally, in the practice, there's a "next" button and you can put whatever shapes you want in whatever squares you want, including the highlighted square, and it doesn't grade it until you click next. In the real assessment, there's no next button, and as soon as you click any of the answer shapes, it immediately grades it, so there's no "let's try this and see how it works" like there is in the practice. Also, for me, I was focused on the problem and when I'd want to put, say, a triangle in one of the boxes, I'd accidentally click the answer triangle instead of the box. In the practice this was no problem, you just changed the highlighted box before you clicked next and it was fine. In the real assessment when I did that, it would instantly accept that as my answer for the highlighted square and move on, so I missed several due to that. Be careful and practice never clicking those answer squares until you're also ready to hit next.

The personality assessment: Yeah you can't practice for it really. It was certainly different though. In the Cut-E, it was a Meyers Briggs thing and I didn't think it was too rough. Introverted/Extroverted, Creative/Logical, etc. I know myself well enough to be able to answer those pretty accurately I think. In the real one, it often gives you the choice between two bad options. Things like "I have strong opinions and always make sure everyone around me knows them." (I am an overbearing jerk) and "When someone thinks positively of me, I know it won't be long before they think negatively of me." (I am a loser). If you don't think either applies to you, tough luck, you have to choose one. I hope I get the interview, obviously, but even if I don't, I wish I would get to chat with the shrink to see what the assessment said about me, because I have no idea.

Clearances: These weren't too bad. You get three times to listen, and you can write them down. The clearances are fairly lengthy with generally three parts to each one. An altitude, a heading, and a speed for example. You have to choose between three possible responses, and all three will be the same except for one item. I have been oversees before, but I'm not some amazing linguist. I may have missed one, but so long as you write them down, it was pretty easy I felt.

In summary, the practice was certainly worth the $20, but there was some negative to it as well that I wish I had known beforehand. Hopefully this helps some folks down the line do better than I did.

So, did you get it? Cheers