SEVERE TESTS FOR TYPISTS

Evening Star, Issue 22456, 29 September 1936, Page 11

SEVERE TESTS FOR TYPISTS

350 PASS OUT OF 8,000 The severe tests which must he passed by candidates for situations as typists and qlerk-typists in Civil Service departments are illustrated by the papers set in the examination last March, now published through the Stationery Office. Each candidate, who had to be between the ages of 18 and 28,_ was examined in English, arithmetic, typewriting, and cither French, German, or shorthand. In the English papers a long incident about a monkey had to be summarised in 175 words. The candidate had to paraphrase such expressions as “ Palmer was grimly determined that Bimbo should expiate his sins with his life,” and “ his precious papers —to be submitted for official approval to-morrow, but now irretrievably ruined.” There was a spelling test in which words expressed in phonetic symbols had to bo correctly spelled. Arithmetic problems included this one: “Find, to the nearest kilogram, the weight of a cubical block of butter, each of whose edges is three decimetres long, if one cubic centimetre of butter weighs 0 95 gramme.” Another question in this section was: A room is 20ft long and 16ft wide. Find the cost of a carpet for this room if a border 2ft wide is left round the room and the carpet costs 12s Cid per square yard. What is the cost of staining the border at 2id per square foot? In the typewriting papers a passage of COO words had to bo copied in 20 minutes. A list of 46 names, each with a sum of pounds, shillings, and pence, which was a copy, had to be checked with its original and all mistakes noted in five minutes. Loud speakers were used in the shorthand test, which consisted of a passage of 270 words dictated at a speed of 60 words a minute and a passage of 240 words dictated at 80 words a minute. Of 2,000 candidates who entered only 350 passed. Eight candidates got no marks at all.