 So PWC conduct both a numerical and verbal reasoning assessment and these tests are there to assess how you think. In terms of preparation for these assessments there are quite a few practice tests that you can find online. So it might be a good idea to run through those and try and complete them within the time frame. So preparing for psychometric testing questions, the ones that are used predominantly are quite you can find kind of example questions and practice questions online so I'd definitely recommend just googling those and getting used to the style and the way that they ask the questions and prepare yourself for them to be timed potentially as well so get used to answering those questions under a little bit of time pressure. So with psychometric tests you need to understand what's being tested first of all. So speak to the graduate employer who's sent you the test link just to clarify what's expected of you. At IWA we have two different tests. So the first is situational judgement. This is around the fit to the culture, the fit to the business environment. So we will ask you or pose a situation to you and then you'll have an A, B, C or D answer and you have to pick the one that you would be most likely to pursue. The option that's most probable that you choose and there's no right or wrong answer here. We're just looking to see do you fit into the culture, do you have the same values that we have at EY. Following that you'll be asked to sit a verbal numerical and diagrammatic ability test. Again there's lots of these on the internet that you can go away and practice or you can go to your careers service. They will have links to practice papers or perhaps some hard copies for you to do. They'll also be able to provide some advice on your style and how you should approach them. So you can't really practice a situational judgement because that's your personality. You've been practicing that your whole life but you can practice the abilities tests and I would really recommend that you do that because they're very time pressured and it can be quite stressful. So yeah practice makes perfect. So psychometric testing you're not going to know what those questions are but it's important to ask the questions of the HR person or whoever's sending you through the test a little bit more about what to expect. You can actually go online and find some example questions that you could put yourself through just so that you're comfortable with the format. Yeah so speed or accuracy it really does depend on what sort of test so we generally say try and answer as many questions as you can accurately but it's a bit of a balancing act at the end of the day. Depends on the test there's no right or wrong answers with some of them so it's really important to take your time and answer them the best that you can. So aptitude test there's definitely right or wrong answers with those but personality test there's no right or wrong answers and generally with personality tests there aren't they're not timed so you're not having to think about that speed. A pass mark is very relative so some companies will progress the top 50% of higher scores and they will filter out or reject the bottom 50%. Other companies don't do this at all they just have the scores as part of the decision-making process but there isn't a hard or fast pass or fail mark so again it really depends on the employer. It depends on the type of employer regarding and their process regarding how important the test scores are so again some employers will say the bottom 25% of test scores will be rejected immediately before you even get to interview stage others will make everybody sit the test who applies and then when the business sits down at the end of the process they will take the test into consideration but they won't screen out based on them so some employers you have to pass the test otherwise you won't get to the end of the process and be successful. Other employers will allow you to fail the tests for for ones for better expression compared to the candidates but you might still have the offer if you stand out in other areas so again it really depends which isn't helpful but you just have to do your best. So when it comes to the overall selection process we do put a lot of weight on the results of your assessments. In terms of the overall selection process the test is just one part of it and there's different weightings given to that test depending on which service line that you're actually interviewing with but from my experience the service lines want to meet people so they do they do use them but actually meeting people and really getting engaged for they are as a person probably has more weight than than the tests. A psychometric testing is works alongside the traditional methods so it's all in partnership it's not just the the last part of the process in the final decision making it's all encompassing so it's a psychometric test it's the interviewing phone screens and whatever that process will entail. In terms of our overall selection process and the psychometric testing it's very valued within KPMG and our partners and our managers do value it very much as an indicator of someone's intelligence and that being said we don't put our 100% weighting on that on the psychometric testing so if you completely tank the testing or you you know having a really bad day and talk to us we can you know we take things like that into consideration and you know if you've under a lot of time pressure you've got lots of assignments things like that you know again just talk to us and let us know that you did struggle and again we just look at everything as a whole together. So for psychometric testing a couple of important things to note would be again make sure you're somewhere quiet free from any distractions somewhere you can really focus and keep a pen and paper handy and think about how you respond to questions so if it is you know typing something or if it is writing something with pen and paper think about how you work the best and just make sure that you apply that and try and yeah have a cup of tea next to you. My top three tips with psychometric tests are to practice whether that's online or with the career service if you go unprepared you stand a much better chance of performing to your highest ability than if you haven't. My second bit of advice would be to remain as calm as possible under pressure and the third bit of advice that feeds into this is pick a good time and place to sit the tests you don't want to be distracted you don't want to feel like you're running out of time you have to get out of a room at a certain time for instance if you've booked one in the library you just need to make everything as calm as possible in your environment so you can give it your all and focus 100% on them.