Eye test

Had the necessary eye tests this morning. The optician was in the Medical Corps within the Navy 50 years ago so ended up talking to him for ages :P

I passed with "Standard 1" - better than 20/20 eyesight apparently.

Selection Test

That was a crazy day. Was up early, arrived at the train station in plenty of time...only it was white with snow and the stuff was still falling - in the middle of March?!?! I got that sinking feeling in my stomach as the announcements came in about all the delayed trains.

To cut a long story short, the snow thankfully stopped and my train arrived 30mins late - I'd planned to arrive 45mins early, so there was still hope. I phoned the AFCO to explain that I may be late (again), just in case.

We arrived at Brighton at 9:55 and I walked in at 10am on the dot... not a good start, but it could have been a lot worse.

The 3 other candidates had already done the paperwork and I quickly handed over my documents to be photocopied. Then we all given a fire drill briefing and led downstairs. My adrenaline was pumping now; the CPO saying, "you are under exam conditions - no talking" didn't help!

The test consisted of four sections: Reasoning, Verbal Ability, Mathematics and Mechanical Comprehension, each with their own time limits. Each type of work in the RN has a different pass mark. For example to be an engineer you need to score well in the maths and mechanical tests. Conversely you need to have good verbal ability to be a Communications Technician. They were all much harder than the sample questions and by the end I really didn't think I'd done well enough.

The four of us went to a pub for an hour while our papers were marked. The others seemed nice enough people, all working in boring jobs and wanting the challenge of working for the finest Navy in the world! Two of them wanted to be stewards while the other was applying to be a chef. Comparing my answers, I felt a bit better as we all seemed to have answered similarly.

Arriving back at the AFCO, we were greeted and led back down to the exam room. The CPO explained that usually they speak to people individually - but since we were all in the same boat (excuse the pun) we were spoken to as a group:

"You've either all failed..............or all passed. I'm pleased to say, congratulations; you've all passed the selection tests for your chosen branches"

My heart skipped a beat, I'd passed!

We were given a VERY detailed security/counter-terrorist form and explained what happened next: the interview.

The date is set for 4th April, so not long to prepare. I'm told this is the hardest part of selection.

Again, hopefully my next post will be a positive one.

UPDATE: Gah. Had a phone call after I posted this, they'd double booked the 4th and I've been resheduled for the 18th March. Sucks to be honest, but at least I have more time to prepare.

Selection Test date

Got a letter in the post this morning:

"Dear Mr Adam,

With reference to your recent application for entry into the Naval Service I am pleased to invite you to attend this office at 10:00 on 20/03/2007 for psychometric testing..."

So far so good, but now it starts getting scary. Looking through the sample questions they sent me, the tests aren't dissimilar to the ones I took for NATS selection (air traffic control) - same format but slightly easier and not so much of a time pressure. The four sections are Reasoning, Verbal Ability, Maths/Mental Arithmetic and Mechanical Comprehension. Time to get revising!

Hopefully the next post with be a positive one, wish me luck...