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Does the proposed Bar Course Aptitude Test examine the right skills?
On 24 February 2011, Catherine Baksi from the Law Gazette reported that the Chair of the Bar’s Regulator, Baroness Ruth Deech, had said that too many people on the Bar Professional Training Course (“BPTC”) are ‘wasting their money’ because they are ‘not up to it’.
Baroness Deech said the Bar Standards Board (BSB) would press ahead with its plans to introduce aptitude tests for students before they can undertake the BPTC.
This week they indeed proposed a new aptitude test, the Bar Course Aptitude Test (“BCAT”), and are welcoming feedback on their public consultation before 29 February 2012. This test is designed to measure an aptitude to complete the BPTC, though we are specifically not told whether this is the same for aptitude for a successful career at the Bar. The BSB perceives the main problem to be the current high failure rates of the BPTC.
Currently the admissions requirement for the BPTC at both the College of Law and BPP, as well as an arbitrary good standard of English, is a II.2, whereas the usual minimum requirement for a corporate training contract is a II.1. Currently, at Cambridge, approximately 80% of students achieve in Part II of the Tripos (Finals) a I, II.1 or II.2 in some subjects. The most parsiminious explanation therefore for a high failure rate on the BPTC is actually that its academic requirements are simply not high enough. However, many teachers feel that a simplistic judgement based on academic qualifications is not that fair in determining success in this profession.
Most curiously, the latest initiative from the Bar Standards Board seems to be in a ‘parallel universe’ to the excellent initiative, including eminent academics, teachers and lawyers, called the ‘Legal Education and Training Board‘. Part of the problem for the high failure rate of the BPTC, according to the BSB, may be students not succeeding in small, interactive sessions such as involving role-play.
It is now consistently acknowledged that people have different skills in general cognitive (thinking) intelligence and social/emotional intelligence. In the current management and leadership literature, as well as in experimental psychology, the role-plays found in the BPTC would in fact be considered to tapping domains of emotional intelligence, as framed latterly by Daniel Goleman, not traditional cognitive intelligence. The BCAT is based on the Watson-Glaser Test, and this test does not test emotional intelligence at all. For anybody to ignore knowingly the recent decades of intelligence in the last decades is rather perplexing. The BCAT does not test either how law students would react in well-validated ‘real life’ scenarios they might experience as a law student, or ultimately a trainee. This would be a ‘situational judgement test’.
The main potential fault with the solution proposed within the proposed BCAT is that there exist no published data about the reliability of the Watson-Glaser Test in predicting success on a BPTC course. To my knowledge, one magic circle firm is thought to use the Watson-Glaser Test in selection of future solicitors, and the most of the rest use the SHL online verbal reasoning test. It has previously been argued that psychometric testing should not a sole criterion for job suitability. There is no compulsory regulatory requirement of these psychometric tests, but the British Psychological Society has been calling for best practice standards in this field for a longtime along with their European counterparts. There are few published studies about the correlation between psychometric tests and performance in a any professional legal service environment, let alone formal studies comprising barristers or solicitors in training.
The BSB consultation provides a description of the features of the ideal psychometric aptitude test, and this indeed useful; it is a list of characteristics which few people in this field would disagree with. However, even if you are testing cognitive intelligence rather than emotional intelligence, there are many different cognitive skills you can choose. For example, it is possible to perform poorly at the SHL online verbal reasoning test due to cognitive deficits in learning, memory, attention, strategy and language, so therefore most reasonable cognitive neuropsychologists would find drawing conclusions from such tests difficult. However, these tests determine the future of intelligent students wishing with all the best will to enter the learned profession. Morale of my student colleagues is poor – managing strategic change like this new test will need the goodwill of the profession, including all its stakeholders such as students. The Bar Standards Board will then have to listen carefully to the expert views of academics, not just psychological test suppliers.
However, the Bar Standards Board have to be congratulated for producing and recommending such a comprehensive proposal for a practical aptitude test for the BPTC, the success of which is pivotal for regulating overall standards at the Bar from an early stage. The proposal, if students can afford it, seems eminently practical with an industry-respected test supplier. The views of the open public consultation are bound to be interesting.
Online verbal reasoning tests for training contract and vacation scheme placements: introducing Legal Recruit
A few months ago, I got to know the online verbal reasoning test very well. SHL are the one of gold standards in offering the tests, and do so to the best of my constructive knowledge for the vast majority of prestigious corporate law firms here in London. Other test providers, such as Kenexa, are well known, and of course Pearson Assessment are the masterminds behind the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test (I know because I have physically sat them in two Head Offices of corporate law firms in the City).
Verbal reasoning tests intrigue me greatly, as my Finals at Cambridge were in neuroscience, and actually I did my Ph.D. there in cognitive neuropsychological assessment. The focus of my Ph.D. was in the skills centred around planning and decision-making, thought to be a function of the frontal lobes, but of course we had to be well versed in other neurocognitive domains such as attention, language, memory and perception. At first I was ambivalent about virtually all the corporate law firms subject future employees to an online verbal reasoning test for about 20 minutes, when you would have thought that a II.1 would be sufficient information for a legal recruiter. Legal recruiters often state that verbal reasoning skills are essential for lawyers, and I used to shrug my shoulders mentally. Actually, I now feel that this is very true. In my Master of Law in commercial law from the College of Law, we were given a lot of practice in drafting various commercial legal documents, such as intellectual property licenses, due diligence reports and even peremptory orders in international arbitration for the High Court. I believe it’s essential for law trainees to be good at basic inferences; they do need to be able to tell whether a statement is true or false from information presented to them, and to be confident enough to say when there is insufficient information to make a conclusion. Knowing the limitations of your own knowledge must be a key skill for any professional.
Therefore, a few months ago, I decided to put my experience of online verbal reasoning tests into action. I am visually impaired, and generally I felt that law firms varied a lot in their basic competence in being allowed to make reasonable adjustments for me, which they are obliged to do under law. For example, on my site http://www.legal-recruit.org, which I launched today, you can also alter the text size, or ask for extra time in doing a test (which learners with dyslexia should be able to action with the help of the Learning Support Officer of their law school and the Graduate Recruitment Team of their chosen corporate). I have done a lot of background reading in the cognitive skills tested in the verbal reasoning test and the situational judgement tests, and reported my findings on my specialist blog http://www.legalrecruit.org). You can even try a practice online verbal reasoning test for fee, and you’ll obtain a free, confidential, detailed report providing you with item-by-item breakdown (as well as your total performance metric.)
On the front page, you can access information about the tests, including factsheets, examples of verbal reasoning tests of the ‘True’, ‘False’ or ‘Cannot Say’ variety, educational videos, and books on verbal reasoning and situational judgment tests.
I have produced factsheets explaining the rationale behind the tests in general, some guidance for the online verbal reasoning test, some guidance about the competences sought by corporate law firms in their situational judgement tests, and what reasonable adjustments you can rightly ask for if you a visual impairment or reading difficulty.
The aim of this website is to make sure that you are familiar with the test format of the online verbal reasoning test. You should of course check the format of the test you need to do with your legal recruiter, and to make sure you understand how the test operates. With help from the books (free sample material is provided on the home page), you can understand how correct answers are arrived at.
I’ve tried to describe this information succinctly in a series of factsheets. However, if you prefer visual material, also for free, we’ve produced some videos for you to understand verbal reasoning tests, situational judgement tests, and reasonable adjustments. As they’re also on YouTube, you can watch these on an iPad.
I hope this makes your journey into the online verbal reasoning test enjoyable! I’ve had great fun working on this venture, which came out of an idea in my student society, but which is otherwise totally independent. Please do let me know how you get on either by commenting here, or emailing enquiries@legal-recruit.org
Two 'Legal Recruit' books on online tests for law students, pub date 1 Nov 2011
It is important to note that, whilst ‘Legal Recruit’ is an important key initiative from the BPP Legal Awareness Society to encourage a business culture in law, ‘Legal Recruit’ is absolutely nothing to do with BPP media, nor indeed represents any official teaching or guidance from BPP.
Book 1 – Practical verbal reasoning questions for law students (111 pages)
This book has carefully designed verbal reasoning questions, of the ‘True’, ‘False’, or ‘Cannot Say’ variety. Two questions follow each of the passages together with full explanations, and reading passages cover a variety of subjects, including biology, business, economics, education, engineering, environment, geography, geology, health and safety, human relations, medicine, modern languages, physics, technology, and transport. Readers of this title will benefit from the general explanation as to how to do these tests, and from the worked examples, such that they feel much more comfortable when they come to do such tests for real for training contract or vacation placement applications. The book will also be also of interest for applicants to corporates who use these tests for recruitment purposes. This title has a publication date of 1 November 2011, and is only available to download for £7.50 from the Legal Recruit website.
Book 2 – Practical situational judgements questions for law students (77 pages)
This book has carefully-designed questions in six competences commonly assessed in situational judgement tests. Situational judgement tests are used by some law firms to ascertain the suitability of a law student for a training contract. These competences are problem solving, proactive attitude, commitment to excellence, communication and negotiation, teamwork, and attention-to-detail and leadership. The book will also be also of interest for applicants to corporates who use these tests for recruitment purposes. Getting focused on these competences will help law students to understand the relevance of these skills to recruitment and their general professional life. This title has a publication date of 1 November 2011, and is only available to download for £7.50 from the Legal Recruit website.
The 'cooking test' of the Disability Living Allowance
The Disability Living Allowance is a social security benefit intended for adults and children with a long-term illness or a disability. The rules for the allowance are in relation to difficulties with mobility and care. There is no requirement for either payment to be made in respect of actual expenses nor for anyone to actually be providing help. Some components of the allowance must be claimed before the age of 65 (but can continue if claimed before this age).
There are three care components. These generally increase from the lower to the higher in line with increasing amounts of care needs. A claimant will need to show that it would reasonable for him or her to have help from someone due to illness or disability. For example, this involves considering whether a claimant could prepare and cook a meal for one person given the raw ingredients. It does not matter whether you cook or not; it is whether you could that matters. No set meal is listed in the rules but generally you should consider whether you could peel and chop two kinds of vegetables, put these into small pans, put something under a grill and safely get the meal together onto a plate.
You would be expected to make some concessions to make things easy for yourself, for example, using a “slotted spoon” to lift things out of a pan and sit at a chair or stool to prepare or cook the food. If you can only cope with heating up convenience foods or making snacks due to your disability or illness this should not count as cooking.
To fail the cooking test, as a consequence of his or her disability, a young person cannot prepare a cooked main meal for himself without help.
This help could be, for example:
• reading instructions and labels, guidance to follow a recipe
• identifying, weighing and measuring ingredients
• putting basic food safety and hygiene into practise
• using sharp knives, hot pans, cookers and other equipment safely
• recognising when food is properly cooked or safe to eat
• timing it all so that everything’s ready together.
Case law on the cooking test increasingly shows two opposing strands of opinion amongst the Social Security Commissioners. Some take the view that it is a purely hypothetical test of a person’s ability to perform certain standard activities. Others consider that the test is a more subjective one of a person’s ability to prepare a meal taking into account alternative methods of cooking as well as kitchen aids and adaptations.?? The DLA cooking test is, in fact, set out in s. 71(1)(a)(ii) Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act [1992]. A person is entitled to lower rate DLA care component if, because of their disability, they ‘cannot prepare a cooked main meal for [themselves] if [they have] the ingredients’.
There is little dispute that the test is objective in as much as it is irrelevant that a person might never wish to cook a traditional main meal or might not be able to afford to cook with fresh ingredients. It is also clear that a person is assumed to be willing to learn to cook and cannot pass the test simply because their partner has always cooked for them (R v Secretary of State ex parte Armstrong, 4.4.96). The subjective approach is illustrated in CDLA/5686/1999 where Commissioner Rowland decided that devices and unconventional methods could be taken into account. The same Commissioner, in CDLA/17329/1996, said that ‘one must look at the individual claimant in his or her actual circumstances’, holding that if a claimant has an adapted kitchen that enables them to cook, they should not pass the test.
Although there are some areas of conflict in the case law, there are still many aspects of the cooking test that are straightforward and undisputed. For example, some disputes concentrate on physical issues rather than cooking difficulties caused by mental disability. Ability to plan a meal, motivation to carry it through, ability to read ingredients, to prepare things in the right order, to time the cooking and know when food is ready, should all be taken into account.
