Home » Posts tagged 'questions'
Tag Archives: questions
Brand new free practice psychometric test worked examples for training contract applications
Pro bono publico is an important strand of many lawyers’ output.
That is why our student society based at BPP is distributing for free this book containing 150 worked examples of psychometric test questions. These questions test verbal reasoning using short passages, and require respondents to decide whether given statements are true or false, or they simply cannot say from the information given. These worked examples are all totally original, and the intellectual property of ‘Legal Recruit’.
These questions are carefully designed to test common competences in verbal reasoning questions. The passages are across a broad range of subjects, ranging from biology to transport. The passages are all of roughly the same length (120 – 140 words).
We should like to stress, as usual, that this product is produced by students at BPP, but otherwise nothing to do with BPP. It is certainly not provided in any capacity by BPP, and students should use the material supplied entirely voluntarily. We have nothing to do with the official Careers Service of any of the teaching sites of BPP Law School. This document (below) is not endorsed by anyone at BPP.
We do not have any test providers in mind when we provide these worked examples, as we hope that the skills you develop in answering them can be transferred to whatever test you do for real. However, it’s advisable to phone up the graduate recruitment team (or email them), to enquire about where (if anywhere) a similar test appears in their application process for a training contract. It could be required at roughly the time of submission of the online application form, or could feature during the ‘assessment day’ (if relevant).
Terms and conditions Please do not distribute this material without permission or acknowledgement, and any sale of this material for commercial gain is strictly prohibited. You may tweet me on @legalaware if you wish to use this material in a specific context, but otherwise the worked examples are provided for personal use. I would be especially interested if you disagree with any of the answers, and I’ll happily consider your argument (and amend the manuscript if necessary.)
Scenarios are based on real news stories which are freely available at the time of writing, but any misrepresentation or similar is completely unintentional. We should be happy to amend any material, if alerted accordingly.
Anyway, on a positive note, I hope that you enjoy using these resources in addition to your usual GDL, LPC, LLB(Hons) or LLM learning materials, and that you approach training contract applications for City firms with due confidence.
To download the free 87-page document containing brand new 150 worked examples, please click here. By clicking, you are deemed to have agreed to the terms and conditions provided above.
Enjoy!
Images of samples from this new book
The online application form for vacation placements and training contracts
A list of questions below were based on the current questions being used by the following firms on their online application forms: Ashford, Baker & McKenzie, Bird and Bird, Burges Salmon, CMS Cameron McKenna, Dechert, Dewey and LeBoeuf, Holman Fenwick Willan, K & L Gates, Kennedys, Mischon de Reya, Macfarlanes, Norton Rose, Olswang, Osborne Clarke, and Paul Hastings.
[X] has minimum academic requirements, so before completing our application form please give careful consideration to the following questions:
1 Do you have 3 A levels at grades A, B, B or equivalent? (N.B. Taken in one sitting and NOT including General Studies.
2 Have you gained or are you realistically expecting to gain a minimum 2.1 honours degree or equivalent?
3 Have you previously made an unsuccessful application to [X]?
Languages
4 Multiple languages can be added by selecting the language, and selecting fluency levels.
Education
5 [Percentage grades are now required for undergraduate and postgraduate subject results. You are required to ensure that your institution details and results are correct. You must include at least one secondary and one undergraduate record (including all results). You are also obliged to provide a complete breakdown of all your grades by subject, obtained during secondary school and university. Please list your all of your GCSEs and A' Levels or international equivalent.]
How did you hear about us?
6 [Various options are given.]
Referees
7 [You are normally required to enter details of two employers at least, sometimes one academic and one vocational.]
Other details
8 Excluding motor offences not resulting in a custodial sentence or disqualification from driving, have you ever had a criminal conviction (including any spent conviction which, by virtue of the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Exceptions) Order 1975, should be disclosed)?
9 Do you have any disability for which you require any assistance for during the selection process?
Work experience
10 [You are normally required to set out details of your work experience (usually 4 + “others”).]
Competence questions
Activities, interests, positions of responsibility
11 Please give brief details of your key non-academic extra-curricular hobbies, activities, leisure interests, highlighting any positions of responsibility whether at school, university or otherwise.
12 Describe your biggest achievement and/or most demanding position of responsibility you have held to date; why did this achievement stand out for you, and what did you learn from this?
Prizes
13 Please provide details of any academic prizes, distinctions, skills, scholarships and any other noteworthy achievements. In the case of skills please specify level of proficiency
Firm specification
14 Please explain why you think you are well suited to [], and have chosen to apply to [] for a training contract or vacation scheme placement? why you think you would make a successful trainee?
15 [X] is a leading UK law firm. How do you think we are distinct from other law firms?
16 All [X] trainee solicitors are based in our [Y] office. Please give your reasons for choosing to live in or around and train at the [Y] office.
Career motivation
17 What qualities do you think you possess to be a successful lawyer at [X]? Which areas of law interest you and why?
18 Please explain what attracts you to a career as a solicitor at an international business law firm, with reference to other careers that you might have considered and why you chose not to pursue them.
Commercial awareness
19 Identify a current commercial article that you read or a recent event from the business world which has attracted your attention recently. Why do you consider it to be significant? Who are the key stakeholders in this situation and what are the implications for those concerned?
20 Business acumen and commercial awareness are important elements to becoming a successful solicitor. Please outline, in your opinion, why you think this would be important and tell us about a time when you’ve demonstrated your abilities in this area. What was the occasion and what impact did possessing this awareness have over the final outcome?
21 Choose a sector group of the firm and summarise the biggest challenges and opportunities they will face in the future.
Proactivity
22 Describe an occasion when you spotted an opportunity to make an improvement in ‘going the extra mile’, and took action without being asked to do so. What steps did you take? What was the outcome? Explain why you think this attribute is relevant for a solicitor
Flexibility
23 Describe a time that you have had to change your approach to a project or task halfway through. What changes did you have to make? Why did you need to make these changes? What was the outcome?
Teamwork
24 Please give an example of a situation where you were required to work in a team to accomplish an important objective and describe your role in achieving this objective
Defining qualities of the candidate
25 What can you tell us about yourself that sets you apart from other applicants, and which are convincing reasons why we should recruit you?
Communication skills
27 All solicitors at [X] work with a wide range of people so need to be able to persuade, influence and display effective communication skills. Describe a situation when you have had to communicate effectively.
Conflict and pressure
26 The success of [X] is built on the self-motivation and applied effort of all its employees, as demonstrated by their ability to work through setbacks coping effectively with conflict and pressure. Describe a situation when you have had to deal with conflict and pressure. Which other people involved? What did you learn about yourself?
Commitment to excellence
27 Describe an occasion when you have demonstrated commitment to a task or project that resulted in you exceeding expectations either for yourself or others. What steps did you take? What was the outcome?
Gap year
28 If you have taken any gap years, please provide details of work/activities undertaken.
Personal challenge
29 Describe a significant challenge that you have faced outside of your academic studies ideally from the last 2 years. How did you initially analyse the challenge? What approach did you take to solving it? What did you learn from this challenge?
Mitigating circumstances
30 Are there any important mitigating circumstances why you feel the exam results you have listed do not fully reflect your abilities?
Additional information
31 If applicable, please state any additional information which you think is relevant and supportive to your application or which you think has not been covered adequately in this form
We are due to do a meeting on this at 5.30 pm in room 2.4 BPP Law School Holborn for all current members of BPP. Our handout can be downloaded here: BPP Legal Awareness Society handout on the online application form
The LegalAware Training Contract Applicant Of The Year Award Competition 2011
It is with great It is with pleasure that @legalaware and @tc_applications announce the first ever “Training Contract Applicant Of The Year Award” for 2011. Modelled on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award #SPOTY, the winner will be:
Training Contract Applicant Of The Year
Next year, if there is a sufficient number of entries, prizes will also be awarded for:
Best International Student Entry
Best Legal Education Team
Best Newcomer
Anyone can in fact enter this competition. It’s only for fun – you could be a lawyer, law teacher, law student, legal recruiter, or none of the above.
Unlike most ‘marking matrices’ commonly used by corporate law firm HR specialists, each question will be marked on the following basis:
Spelling and grammar 5
Relevance 5
Humour 10
Interest 10
Each question will be double-marked. All competition entries should be through a valid e-mail address, although entries can be anonymous. If you work for a law firm, you must never give your real name or firm details. Answers should be emailed to correspondence@lasmeetings.org
There is a word limit of 100 words per question. You may decide that you wish to answer in much fewer words. In the event of a tie, a winner will be selected at random.
This year’s questions are as follows.
1. Describe an example of team in which you have taken part. What did you learn from this experience?
2. Describe an example of where you have demonstrated commercial awareness.
It’s important to realise that this is a spoof of online training contract application forms. Therefore the panel is looking for comical examples you’d never put in a real application!
The prize will be the prestigious award at a prestigious awards ceremony at a prestigious hotel in London, sometime in the future. The best answers will be published, with the permission of the contestant, in a blogpost in early 2012.
Deadline: January 3rd 2012.
Best of luck!
Practice for online verbal reasoning questions from 'Legal Recruit': biology
Biology is a subject area in the brand new innovative, independent, platform for practising online verbal reasoning assessments called ‘Legal Recruit‘.
Hope you enjoy these questions.
1 Every day, we are bombarded with scientific and medical claims that are not based on good evidence: in advertising material, product websites, advice columns, campaign statements, celebrity health fads and policy announcements. Even where there is some regulation, in advertising or trading standards, such claims keep reappearing. “Sense About Science”, along with over 5,000 scientists, scientific bodies, research publishers and policy makers, don’t want people to continue getting away with making claims without supporting evidence. They want things to change, so that anyone making a claim expects to be challenged, and is made to stand by their words. The only way to do this is to get more people asking for evidence.
Q1 Campaign statements are never based on good evidence.
CANNOT SAY. ‘Campaign statements’ are given as examples of scientific and medical claims which are not based on good evidence.
Q2 “Sense About Science” wants people to continue getting away making claims without supporting evidence.
FALSE. The passage states the precise opposite.
2 We hear about bacteria for lots of different reasons, and it’s unusual for many of them to be ‘good’. Indeed, the last time most people probably remember seeing bacteria make headlines was the contamination of salad vegetables with a deadly Escherichia coli strain relatively recently. However, as any microbiologist will tell you, bacteria are an extremely diverse group of organisms, with equally diverse properties which make some of them indispensable for many aspects of our lives; including food production, digestion and water treatment. For example, Geobacter sulfurreducens is just one of many bacterial superheroes. In this case, its superpower is ‘bioremediation’; the use of its metabolism to remove pollutants from the environment.
Q3 There is a very narrow range of strains in the bacteria class.
FALSE. Bacteria are stated to be an extremely diverse group of organisms.
Q4 Bacteria are never used for water treatment.
FALSE. Bacteria are said to play an ‘indispensible’ role in many functions, including water treatment.
3 While some birds only migrate locally in response to extreme weather conditions, others undertake seasonal long-distance migration between land masses and sometimes hemispheres. The most impressive avian migrator is, by far, the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea). Weighing an average of 100g, with a average wingspan of 75 – 85 cm, the birds sometimes nest just once every three years, as so much of their 30 year life span is spent in flight. The bird has the longest seasonal movement than any other animal, and the birds move so consistently with the seasons that they only ever see long days; they experience more sunlight per year than any other creature.
Q5 80 cm is a reasonable estimate wingspan of the African tern.
CANNOT SAY. The information given only refers to the Artic tern.
Q6 It is rare for the Artic Tern to be exposed to sunlight, compared to other creatures.
FALSE. The passage states that the Artic Tern ‘experience more sunlight per year than any other creature’.
4 There’s actually 47 known species of ‘leafcutter ants’, endemic to South and Central America, which live in colonies of up to ten million individuals organised into a complex social structure. The leaf cutting ants don’t actually eat the leaves they harvest – this is part of an elaborate process of cultivating a mutualistic fungus, which in turn provides the ants with the nutrients on which they feed. Efficiency of fungal cultivation is dependent on roles played by distinct ‘castes’ of ants, based mostly on size. Large workers forage for leaves and defend the colony, while smaller workers farm the fungus and tend to the nest. There’s even a designated waste removal team.
Q7 There are currently over 50 species of ‘leafcutter ants’.
CANNOT SAY. The passage states that there are 47 ‘known species’ of ‘leafcutter ants’, but it is not known how many unknown species of ‘leafcutter ants’ there currently are.
Q8 Only the caste of ants determines the efficiency of fungal cultivation done by ants.
FALSE. The passage states that distinct ‘castes’ of ants determine the efficiency of fungal cultivation done by ants.
5 Obesity is a growing problem worldwide, but proper protein consumption can help keep it at bay. Researchers have found that, when subjects were fed a 10% protein diet, they consumed 12% more energy over four days than they did on a 15% protein diet. Moreover, 70% of the increased energy intake on the lower protein diet was attributed to snacking. When the protein content was further increased to 25%, however, the researchers observed no change in behaviour relative to the 15% protein diet. It had previously been suggested that protein content plays an important role in determining overall energy intake, and thus affects obesity, but until this study, experimental verification had been lacking.
Q9 Obesity is only a problem in the U.S.
FALSE. Obesity is said to be a ‘growing problem worldwide’.
Q10 Protein content plays an important role in determining overall energy intake.
CANNOT SAY. No definite conclusion can be drawn from this study. Despite the findings of this study, the statement could still be true.
6 The anti-obesity properties of resveratrol have been demonstrated for the first time in a primate. Researchers recently studied the compound, generated naturally by plants to ward off pathogens, which has received much interest as a dietary supplement for its supposed life-extending effects. A team of researchers from Paris have decided to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with resveratrol on the weight, metabolism and energy intake of six mouse lemurs. The physiological benefits of resveratrol are currently under intensive investigation, with recent work suggesting that it could be a good candidate for the development of obesity therapies. The team found that lemurs eating a diet supplemented with the compound decreased their energy intake by 13% and increased their resting metabolic rate by 29%.
Q11 Based on research in the rat, resveratrol could be a good candidate for the development of anti-obesity therapies.
CANNOT SAY. The research described used a sample of lemurs (primates).
Q12 In this study, lemurs eating a diet supplemented with the compound increased their energy intake by an average of 13%.
TRUE. This is a finding from this study.
