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Psychometric tests (like the SHL one) for training contract applications – free resources with 11 days left!
Psychometric tests for training contracts are extremely important. Within a week or two of submitting your application form online, your firm will send you a link to an online psychometric test (or two) for you to do strictly under exam conditions on your own. It is critical that this is your own work, and your law firm may even wish you to do a test at their main offices to verify any test result you have reported as having done by yourself.
‘Legal Recruit’ is my relatively new, innovative platform for law students to practice online verbal reasoning test skills in advance of their training contract application. It is nothing to do with BPP, although a small group of us in the student society, the BPP Legal Awareness Society, have designed it from scratch this year. Its location is here.
The deadline for the current set of applications is in 13 days’ time from the publication of this blogpost; that is, midnight on the evening of July 31, 2012 (i.e. before August 1, 2012).
You can attempt a full length practice test of 30 questions, requiring answers of either ‘TRUE’, ‘FALSE’ or ‘CANNOT SAY’, similar to the SHL test. You will then get a detailed report on your performance, giving an indication of the %ile in which you would fall based on our sample of 200 graduates who’ve taken the test. All you need is to supply an email that works – you can submit a fake name if you wish, and none of us are able to look up individual performance test scores.
The practice test is situated here; I do not suggest you register for a subscription at this late stage, just look at the free videos and materials on the website which will provide you with a complete explanation of the online verbal reasoning test. We should emphasise that we do not know any of the SHL questions; and the only way to practise SHL questions is to look carefully at their practice materials.
For nearly all firms, you will have to do an online verbal reasoning test within about a week of submitting your online application form. The most common suppliers of this test are SHL and Kenexa, and we hope that practise using the ‘Legal Recruit’ platform will be beneficial.
You might find these free resources useful in preparation of this test:
A factsheet of free worked examples
December 2010 free book of 150 worked examples for online verbal reasoning tests
April 2011 free book of 150 worked examples for online verbal reasoning tests
Book 1 (verbal reasoning) book sample
Book 2 (situational judgement) book sample
Background to verbal reasoning tests
Background to situational judgement tests
Background to competences (the critical abilities all law firms look for)
Background to difficulties and online assessments
How to complete the online application form for training contract applications
How to write a cover letter for training contract applications
I genuinely wish you the very best of luck for your application! It’s a very important thing to do.
Legal Awareness Society Competition: The best verbal reasoning question
The aim of this competition to select the best verbal reasoning question.
Winners of this competition will be sent a copy of this book which I will pay for personally. Gary and David (authors) have nothing to do with the idea or implementation of this competition. Also, the winning answers will be put into the databank of questions of the Legal Recruit platform, an independent website for law students to practice online verbal reasoning skills. This platform is not affiliated with any other entity (including law firms or law education providers.)
(Ignore the “Look Inside”)
The English Legal System 2012 – 2013
Gary Slapper is Professor of Law, and Director of the Centre for Law, at The Open University, and writes a legal column for The Times. David Kelly was Principal Lecturer in Law at Staffordshire University.
Slapper and Kelly’s The English Legal System explains and critically assesses how our law is made and applied. Annually updated, this authoritative textbook clearly describes the legal rules of England and Wales and their collective influence as a sociocultural institution.
This latest edition of The English Legal System presents and analyses changes made to the legal system by the coalition government, and digests recent legislation and case law. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, the Crime and Security Act 2010, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, new European law, and the latest decisions of the Supreme Court are all incorporated into the text, and this edition also digests recent research on the work of juries and the criminal courts, and the 2011 changes to the regulation of, and Government contributions towards, legal services.
Key learning features include:
- a clear and logical structure with short, manageable, well-structured individual chapters;
- useful chapter summaries which act as a good check point for students;
- sources for further reading and suggested websites at the end of each chapter to point students towards further learning pathways;
- an online skills network including how tos, practical examples, tips, advice and interactive examples of English law in action.
Relied upon by generations of students, Slapper and Kelly’s The English Legal System is a permanent fixture in this ever evolving subject.
Competition rules
1. The subject of the verbal reasoning question must be in one of 15 subject areas: biology, business, economics, education, engineering, environment, geography, geology, health and safety, human relations, medicine, modern languages, physics, technology, and transport.
2. The passage must be written in perfect English, using correct spelling and grammar, and contain sentences of reasonable length. It must not have any political nature, nor potentially or actually offend any laws of the UK.
3. The passage should be around 130 words, and be followed by two statements. These statements should either be clearly true, clearly false, or neither clearly true nor clearly false. A definite answer should be produced for each of the two statements, with an uncontroversial explanation as to the answer.
4. An individual can make more than competition entry. However, all passages and pair of questions/answers should be consistent with rules 1-3 above.
5. By entering this competition, you agree to the questions/answers being used, if it is correctly set, on the online Legal Recruit platform; and you also share copyright for the material with Legal Recruit.
6. The judge’s decision is final. This competition will conclude 5 pm June 30 2012. Entries must be made by email to enquiries@legal-recruit.org
Can you do this online verbal reasoning test question about 'Legal Cheek'?
This would be a typical length of a passage in a verbal reasoning test:
“Legal Cheek” is less than a year old. Its name is a parody of the respected digest of news for the legal community called “Legal Week”. Launched by Alex Aldridge, a law journalist, its posts include a ‘cheeky’ look at legal services, the nature of legal education, and topics of general interest to lawyers and law students. It remains a popular website, and posts are often signposted on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. So far, it has been very wide-ranging. It is said that partners look at it in case they have been mentioned, and it is said that some ‘celebrity’ members of the legal social media community look forward to receiving a name-check. Such a name-check is often a sign of a good status within the social media world of law in the UK.
(LegalCheek logo (C) LegalCheek 2011/2, original location: http://www.legalcheek.com/)
[Length of Passage = 135 words]
So could you do the following questions?
‘Legal Cheek’ was launched by David Allen Green.
FALSE. It says clearly in the second sentence that ‘Legal Cheek’ was launched by Alex Aldridge.
Some ‘celebrity’ members of the legal social media community look forward to receiving a name-check.
CANNOT SAY. The Passage reports that ‘it is said that…’, but the statement itself is neither definitely true or definitely false.
Law students unite – and show the law firms that these psychometric tests are very easy!
To follow Legal Cheek, please press here for Twitter, and/or Facebook.
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
Verbal reasoning tests in training contract applications for law students
Virtually all City law firms make the verbal reasoning test a compulsory part of the application for a training contract.
They are therefore crucial for law students to master, whatever their skills and knowledge in law.
City law firms will often require a minimum level of competence in the verbal reasoning test, i.e. it could be the policy of that firm to only invite candidates who come in the top 20% to interview if they reach a high enough score on their ‘application form matrix’. Therefore, law students often fall victim to ‘death by spreadsheet’ by legal recruitment managers and their administrators.
“Training contract” (@tc_applications) is a Twitter account for anyone to follow.
The only way to get better at these tests is simply ‘practice, practice, practice’. Legal Recruit (click here) is a novel, independent and fun website which contains resources including practice questions, factsheets and videos. 100 people have taken the sample test so far, and the average score is 21. The test is completed within 20 minutes, and contains 30 questions. There are many free practice questions on the site as well, and all of the factsheets and videos are free.
Please do use the Twitter to say how the website can be improved. Alternatively, free feel to post on our Facebook page.
THIS INITIATIVE IS NOTHING TO DO WITH BPP.
Handout for this evening's meeting on psychometric tests
In the meeting it was made very clear that ‘Legal Recruit’ is a platform with plenty of free material including factsheets, a book, a practice verbal reasoning test and videos, and is entirely independent of BPP. Current members of the BPP Legal Awareness Society, one of the most popular societies at BPP, were pleased to learn about this initiative which had grown entirely out of the activities of students within the Society. It is not a BPP product.
In this handout (download Presentation on the online verbal reasoning test), you’ll see numerous worked examples. Try to work out for yourself, before you ‘reveal’ the answers, why the statements are either ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘cannot say’. They are not real or actual SHL questions, but the format and style of the questions are similar to what you might see in a real online verbal reasoning test as provided by SHL on behalf of a number of legal recruitment departments. However, these questions and answers provided cannot be taken as any official training for these tests, and should be used entirely voluntarily by students on a personal basis. They are copyright of the BPP Legal Awareness Society.
Answering an online verbal reasoning question: a topical example
Here is a passage for you to consider!
U.K. unemployment rose by 48,000 to 2.67 million in the three months to the end of December 2011, according to official figures published today. The unemployment rate was 8.4%, the Office for National Statistics said, the highest for 16 years. The number of young people without a job rose 22,000 to 1.04m, taking the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds to 22.2%. The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in January increased by 6,900 to 1.6 million. While the unemployment rate is now at its highest since 1995, the number of job vacancies rose to 476,000 in the three months to January. A government minister stated that there are signs of stability. An opposition spokesman, however, suggested that today’s figures make for grim reading for the millions of squeezed families desperate for good news on the economy.
This passage would be reasonable simply as a test of verbal reasoning skills by some test providers. It does not contain overly complicated English, and has a total sentence length of 137 words. It possibly wouldn’t be used in a real assessment as it is on a political subject, and online verbal reasoning tests tend to avoid political topics. I would like it to explain the reasoning behind how a passage might be used to test verbal reasoning, however.
Have a go at getting inside the mindset of the world of verbal reasoning! Read each of the sentences, and make up your mind about one of three alternatives.
True means the statement follows logically given the information contained within the passage.?False means the statement cannot logically follow given the information contained within the passage.? Cannot Say means you are not given enough information in the passage to decide.
The key to all of these is you must consider ONLY the information given in the passage. In answering the test, you are advised not to take anything for granted, and do not make unjustified assumptions. This is critically important, especially if you do have background knowledge and/or experience of the subject matter in hand.
More than 3 million were unemployed in the UK on 31 December 2011, according to official figures published today.
FALSE. This is a direct contradiction of the sentence in the first sentence.
The total number of people currently unemployed is the highest it has been for 16 years.
CANNOT SAY. Whilst it is stated that the rate is the highest for 16 years, this does not necessarily mean that the total number of unemployed is the highest it has been for 16 years. This is a classic trap used by designers of online verbal reasoning tests, to see whether you’ve picked up on the word ‘rate’ in the passage. Furthermore, the information given in the passage is given according to the official Office for National Statistics figure, but this is not necessarily the actual figure. You should not do these tests using ‘outside knowledge’ at all. As an aside, there has been a rampant debate in the media about whether the official statistics underestimate the true level of unemployment in recent days.
A new way to do practice online psychometric tests by law students for legal recruitment
Launched in 2011, ‘Legal Recruit’ is an innovative, totally independent, platform for law students to practice online psychometric tests. These tests are routinely provided by SHL Direct and Kenexa to assist in the recruitment of suitable trainees for training contracts and vacation placements in City law firms. ‘Legal Recruit’ only contains unique, original learning material, not available from any learning provider.
This platform therefore will be ideal for any student who needs to complete a psychometric test for his or her own application. It’s usually expected that a candidate scores in a high percentile, and often firms will not call students who do not meet a minimum standard of performance. On the ‘Legal Recruit’, learners receive an immediate report on their performance, included a detailed breakdown of where they did well on individual items and where they got the answer wrong.
The platform offers students a chance to do 15 full-length verbal reasoning tests and 4 situational judgement tests, for £10. However, there is much free material on the site, including a chance to do a practice online verbal reasoning test for free. 76 graduates have so far taken the test and the average score is 21.61. There are lots of free factsheets, including an introduction to psychometric tests, an introduction to verbal reasoning tests, an introduction to situational judgement tests, visual impairments and reading difficulties, how to write a cover sheet, and how to complete the online application form, and lots of exclusive videos too. We hope to launch a numerical reasoning part of the website shortly.
We were very happy when, last month, the ‘Legal Recruit’ was chosen by the Queen Mary and Westfield College (University of London) Law Students’ Union mock ‘assessment day’, for practice by their law students in verbal reasoning and situational judgement tests. This is excellent co-operation between two active law student groups.
The feedback for ‘Legal Recruit’ has been extremely promising, including from current trainees and law students. There is a free book of 150 verbal reasoning questions that anyone can download for free, also containing original unique specimen test material, and 2 books for comprehensive practice at verbal reasoning and situational judgement tests, priced extremely competitively at £7.5o each.
The link to Legal Recruit is here.
It is important to note that, whilst the website is entirely the intellectual property of ‘Legal Recruit’ (an initiative by students in the BPP Legal Awareness Society run by BPP students for BPP students), this project including product is absolutely nothing o do with BPP. The BPP Legal Awareness Society strives to explain the competitive advantage of businesses through law, and to explain compliance with the law in achieving business strategy.
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
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
