Comment by TraceWoodgrains
2 months ago
To clarify, I picked those two questions not to imply a focus on bad academic performance but because they are both a) absurd/arbitrary and b) the highest-weighted questions by far.
2 months ago
To clarify, I picked those two questions not to imply a focus on bad academic performance but because they are both a) absurd/arbitrary and b) the highest-weighted questions by far.
Is it absurd?
The choices for both were Science, Math, English, History/Social Sciences and Physical Education, plus did not attend college for the second.
Math is highly predictive of ATC performance. English is a key requirement due the communication-heavy role. Physical Education is linked to confidence which is a strong predictor of graduation rates.
That leaves History/Social Sciences and Science as oddballs. If you did poorly in Science or History/Social Sciences in high school, that likely didn't change in college, so you would have gotten at least 15 points by answering it the same way for both questions.
I'm not sure there was an expectation that someone would get them both right. Rather having different answers get 15 points ensures people answering both the same way didn't which likely would make the test a bit too easy to pass.
This test just looks like a big five personality test mixed with some socioeconomic and academic questions.
Do you think that makes someone 5 times more likely to be a good ATC than having served as an ATC in the military, which would get you 3 points?
Or infinitely better than being an active ATC, which earned 0?
Is that the only question that an active military ATC would very likely get points for?
I don't think you can take questions in isolation. Active military ATC would likely pick up full or close to full points on several other questions like recent unemployment (#26), expressing views (#27), formal training (#30), formal suggestions (#36), knowledge of job (#46) and probably coursework (#54).