CFAT Preparation/Analysis (Canadian Forces Aptitude Test)

hey what's up I myself have written the
CFA t-test I am bound to give a disclaimer at this point that nothing I tell you in this video is classified information nothing I tell you is based on secret information from within the test its contents or the writing process when I both tell you is advice based on an analysis of the materials that the Canadian government makes available publicly so that you can prepare yourself for the test there is already advice on the internet including the advice provided by the Armed Forces themselves much of that advice is out-of-date so if your reading material on the internet from 2003 what I'm going to tell you in this video is better uh in terms of studying not everybody studies for the test you can go in and write the test with no studying with no preparation and do a okay many people do you'll see many comments to that effect in the internet however again this is not classified information the people who designed this test presumed that most of the applicants would be recent high school graduates that they would have a very clear memory of for example algebra that they learned in high school if you're a grown adult with diverse work experience you may have been in the workforce for 10 years and you never used algebra once in those 10 years those are the people by and large who want to sit down and study to prepare for this test one of the problems is the difference between the design and function of the test and the study materials you will likely find available the single greatest hint about the nature of the test and again the Armed Forces they do provide you with a sample test that's not classified so they give you examples of exactly what the questions look like except that it's out of date in that it was based on a paper test now all the testing is computerized I don't think anywhere in the world they still use slips of paper if you write the answers on but with that aside they're providing you with good advice they're providing you with exactly what you need to know if you know how to now among other things they tell you more or less in these words that each question should be done in less than one minute so I think they tell you you're expected to do 30 problems in 30 minutes some about that I finished every section of the test with plenty of time to spare doesn't mean you will but if you for example get a normal high school textbook it's not going to give you problems of that kind okay a high school textbook will probably give you in-depth thought-provoking exercises that take five minutes to solve ten minutes to solve whether we're talking about math or language or the sort of logic puzzle aspect of this test right so this has been designed so that anyone can sit down analyze the problem find the solution in less than one minute so that's very different from prep materials made for a high school student or a college student preparing to write exams what have you right part of the trick is and again you can see this from the publicly available sources very often they're giving you answers to choose from out of the four answers where you can identify the right answer simply through process of elimination if you understand the question fully okay so that's why a question that where if you sold it in full mathematically you might take five minutes if you can look at it understand it and then choose the right answer from the four options takes only a few seconds okay the other thing you need to make an effort to do when you speak to the recruiting office before you write this test or on the same day as the test or after you need to motivate the people in that office to actually sit down to their computers and tell you the hard data about the hiring process and the number of positions for the jobs you've applied for within the military okay ideally you would know that before you ever wrote this test I think the vast majority of people only find it out afterwards or they never find it out at all okay so in my case I discovered that really there was absolutely no possibility of my joining the military because there were only four positions available for another it was five for another was six an incredibly small number of positions available and in reality the selection of the people for those positions has nothing to do with my credentials has nothing to do with the knowledge and ability the assets I can bring to that job now why is that it's because you know the military is a bureaucracy nobody is making the decision the same way that a normal small business would sit down and look at your whole resume think about what kind of person you are whether I should get a job no and this is also relevant to the position people get into there are people who try to write this test and fail and then they have to wait for some period of time before they can write it again in reality if you are a long-term careerist going into the armed forces this test you should not look at it as your gateway to military service in reality as people have probably already told you at the recruiting office the first thing you should do if that's the kind of guy you are is sign up for one of the part-time jobs in the military not necessarily the reserves there are different part-time careers that have basically no barrier to entry once you've entered those the standard supplies to you are completely different because basically the army already has a way to evaluate your competence there's certainly no point in thinking of this like a test where the higher the score you get the better a chance you get to achieve a given position within the army in reality it would be your experience doing other jobs whether that's first working in the reserves doing a part-time job in the signal's Corps or serving in the infantry for a few years although it's not really your dream to be in the infantry some other position you have in mind that kind of service first both opens the doors to the jobs you want to apply for and also it allows you to apply again and again year after year while having steady employment with the military of some kind by contrast it would be completely absurd if you're a civilian living outside the military to write this test study math write the test again and repeat year after year be a lot of paperwork - it's a lot of bureaucracy the design of the test is well calibrated to exclude certain people at very low levels of competence that may sound mean-spirited but that's the reality of the test this test would never establish the difference between someone who can write an essay that gets an A+ and an essay that gets a c-minus this does not separate a genius from a person of average intelligence the only thing this test really does is establish do you have the level of competence where I could trust you to be standing behind me with a machine gun which is pretty fundamental so in looking at the publicly available tests it may seem strange to you there are all these things that really just sort of exclude people with severe dyslexia the spatial reasoning the logic even the reading and math elements looking at the practice test if you imagine the kind of person who would really struggle who would really find this difficult somebody with severe dyslexia I think would find this test incredibly difficult but in terms of minimum competence not maximum ability as a creative writer or thinker artist or anything else that is what they've decided is crucial you know picking up a box and turning it inside out and backwards and remembering which way is up I assume they think that relates to whether or not you can handle an ammunition cartridge and be reliable in the job in different ways now unfortunately the army promotes this test as if it's not a test of minimum competence as if it is used to rank upper levels of ability that's the way they talk it up even after you've written the test they kind of sell you this line as if people get higher scores are be recruited first and considered first and so on and that is just ridiculous so for any particular job the contents of this test and again you know none of this is classified if you've seen the practice test there is absolutely nothing on that test that says whether or not you would be good as a naval officer there is nothing in the test that says whether or not you would be good as a pilot there is nothing in the test that establishes your talents reliability or intelligence in any way it is really just calibrated to measure whether or not you have minimum competence in language logic arithmetic etc so that's my fundamental advice probably the majority of people watching this video are concerned about the math you need to think about the math not in terms of solving the problem but in terms of a logical approach to the multiple choice questions and to being familiar enough with the underlying mathematical concepts that you can rapidly understand the problem and select the best answer it's not really about doing long division or complex reasoning on a piece of paper although again to some extent they promote the test you as if that really is what it's about