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Just passed AOSB Main Board. Army Officer Selection help

capulet_r

Swinger
Hello,

I have just passed my main board, and took my briefing a month ago too, so if anyone has any questions or would like any advice/tips please message away.

Best wishes,
 
They were certainly no harder.

Make sure you practice all three of them as much as possible and you'll be fine. It is essential you practice under time pressure also, as it is the lack of time where most will slip up.

Make sure your revision is targeted to pass the test only i.e Type 1 abstract questions; True, False, Can't Tell verbal questions; only the necessary maths that often comes up in MAP numerical tests.

Tips for abstract.

People say you can't practice for this and you can either do it or you can't - this is not true. Practice as much as you can, and learn to read the likely patterns that tend to exist when you see particular categories. Look up 'The Impression Technique'. Get your head into a UKCAT med book and look through youtube videos also.

Tips for verbal.

The fundamental strategy you should employ involves six simple steps:

1. Read the statement/question
2. Skim the passage for key words and phrases relating to this
3. Read the sentence(s) containing the key words, as well as those before and after 4. Continue scanning the passage for further occurrences of the key words
5. If found again, repeat step 3
6. Select an answer based on this ‘targeted’ reading

Tips for numerical

The below areas will be covered. Get some practice in. If you're on point with your numerical, you will be laughing, as it will be a breeze.

Review your basics: multiplying, division, mulitples, prime numbers, averages. Make sure your are fast at working out the basics on paper.

Fractions and decimals

Rates

Percentages

Ratios and proportions

Data interpreptation

Word problems
 
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Hey mate,

Congrats on the pass. I've got Main Board coming up soon.

What preperation did you find was best, e.g. how many Plan Ex's did you practice before hand? How in depth was your service knowledge prep?

What prep was a waste of time? (if any)

How easy did you find the topics for the lecturette?

Appreciate any and all advice, cheers in advance
 
Hello,

I would focus most of your efforts on the below areas:

Practice Speed Distance Time.

Being comfortable on your SDT will help you no end in your planning excercise and your plan ex questioning. It will also help you in one interview where you are thrown a SDT question and a SDT question may also pop up in your numerical reasoning test.

Practice for MAP tests.

Revise for your numerical, abstract and verbal. Practice will help you with your timings and how to ‘pass’ the test. I found looking up how to pass the UKCAT tests very useful. I also left a little more detail on these above.

Planning exercise.

I did about 15 beforehand. They really did vary on their usefulness though. Get the planning exercise help book and also search around on forums such as arrse for extra planning exercises. If you have sponsorship i’d also ask that regiment if they can send you any also.
I would just go thorough as many as you can, always under time pressure and always following the technique you were shown to use at briefing. You’ll be given a touch up tutorial the day before on Main Board, make sure you are alert and listening throughout.
The important thing to remember with the plan ex is that there is always way too much information for you to deal with. They’re testing whether you can sift through that and find the critical information for the scenario. Go through it once to give yourself a better idea on the general scenario and then again in more detail and highlight to ensure you’ve got the picture before you begin to formulate your COA’s.

Just practice, practice, practice.

I have posted a couple of planning exercises below

Keep on your current affairs.

Subscribe to bloomberg, reuters email newsletters. Watch newsnight, 2200 BBC news, The Andrew Marr show. Read the Week or economist. You are not grilled on current affairs but I would reccommend having a good idea of what is happening in the world. The group discussion is usually more focussed on moral issues, but someone else’s topic may be current affairs based. The written essay will be on current affairs and so you will be in a good position for thatand also yu’ll be laughing during the current affairs test.

Service knowledge.
Have a good idea basic grounding on brief history, structure, regiments, ranks, past deployments, current deployments, future deployments, equipment, role of the army. Hopefully you should be interested in this kind of stuff anyway!

I didn’t go made with this but I still went there comfortable. The army website is a great tool, as is wikipedia, armedforces co.uk.

Leadership.

Harder to practice I know, but just make sure you are ready and happy to stand up and talk infront of a group, telling someone what to do without being either too quiet or seeming like arrogant.


In general I looked at each assessment and prepped for them all. But obviously there are some areas which will be a little unknown e.g the command tasks. You will obviously not know what tasks you will be presented with, but you can identify the ways in which you should conduct yourself thoughout them.


Lecturette.

Do not worry too much about the lecturette. It goes so very quickly and by the time you do it you will know your group well enough to be confident in front of them.

My advice is identify 5 topics on your C.V that stand out from the rest of it i.e your travelling, do you have a unique interest, sporting achievement. It will be the thinks that stand out that you will probably be choosing from and so maybe have a think about how you can present them to the group.
You should know the topics fairly well already considering they are on your C.V.


Hope that helps.
 

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Hi,

I just read through the advice you've put up and it's really great! I'm currently going through the assessment phase and according to my careers' advisor, all being well, I'll be going to Main Board in the first couple of months of the new year (with an expected date of training for May 2019).

Essentially, all I wanted to ask if there are any books you've used or seen used or even heard of that you think would be handy to help pass. I'm mainly interested in those for the MAP tests and any of those other mental tests (it's been a few years since I've done an exam) but if you've got any suggestions for any books that help in any small or major way, I would appreciate this.

Cheers for the advice and I look forward to your reply!
 
Hello,

Thank you.

I would recommend you check out this site https://www.aosbadvicetips.com/, it is a fantastic site I found with lot's of information and also the option to buy a very useful guide.

Also look out for websites and books on the UKCAT assessments. The UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) is an admissions test used by a consortium of UK Universities for their medical and dental degree programmes, the test format includes the verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning tests, which are similar to those sat at the AOSB.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have anymore questions.

I wish you the best of luck for your Main Board.

Best,

C_R
 
Hello,

Thank you.

I would recommend you check out this site https://www.aosbadvicetips.com/, it is a fantastic site I found with lot's of information and also the option to buy a very useful guide.

Also look out for websites and books on the UKCAT assessments. The UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) is an admissions test used by a consortium of UK Universities for their medical and dental degree programmes, the test format includes the verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning tests, which are similar to those sat at the AOSB.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have anymore questions.

I wish you the best of luck for your Main Board.

Best,

C_R

Thank you,

Your advice has been a massive boon towards preparing for Main Board, I was a bit unfocused at first and had no idea on which direction to go in for preparation and you've helped massively.

I'll let you know in 2019 how it went!
 
Hello,

I have just passed my main board, and took my briefing a month ago too, so if anyone has any questions or would like any advice/tips please message away.

Best wishes,

Hi,

Just a couple questions,

Firstly, in terms of the fitness tests what do you actually have to do and how long a break do you get in between them? only because many sites say that there is a 1.5 mile run but apparently there isn’t one anymore.

Also, in terms of army knowledge is there a certain area which is key, and where best is there to get the information?

Thanks in advance
 
Hi Mate,

You'll have about 3 minutes between the 50 sit ups and 44 press-ups, and then about 5 minutes before starting the bleep test, 10.2 (males). You may do the bleep test first, but same timings in between.

Military Knowledge questions for myself were very basic, go on the army website and look at the current vehicles and guns, where we operate etc, that should be sufficient. Wikipedia is always good if you want to go into more depth.
 
There is just the bleep test at the Briefing and Main Board; no 1.5 mile run.

You will also complete press ups and sits ups as standard. There is no much time in between Sit ups/press ups and the bleep test and so make sure you are well hydrated and fueled up!

You complete the 1.5 mile run as part of your PFA once at Sandhurst.

With regards to military knowledge: Buy The British Army Guide, get your head into all the British Army's wikipedia pages and also study the British Army's official website.

Learn the about the ranks, the different arms and regiments within them, the Army's structure, the equipment used throughout and specific equipment in each regiment. Learn some standard acronyms, know who the top ranking officer's are and what they do, know where our recent deployments have been and where we are now and also know what major operations have been conducted over the last few decades. Just immerse yourself with all things Army - if you want this you should be doing it already!

Best of luck.
 

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