A Note From The Author

The specific industry skills identified as essential for entry into the emergency services or Defence forces can be a challenge for many people. Yet, as I have found through my own experiences from having taught at the police academy and now training members of the community, the skills required to demonstrate a sound aptitude for learning are inherent in all of us.

What often remains dormant is the commitment to take on a challenge; it is the challenge and commitment that inspires people to do great things.

The special skills required for the emergency services are readily achievable to the individual who is committed at developing themselves. In most cases where an applicant has failed a general ability test or physical assessment, they were unprepared.

People’s literacy and numeracy skills, test taking skills, behavioural skills as well as fitness level all diminish through lack of use or practice. Many adults, especially adults of indigenous and non-English speaking background, have not had the opportunity to gain the skills set down by industry as pre-requisite for employment, such as numerical problem solving and work place English. This phenomenon places many people, who would otherwise be highly appropriate as emergency service officers, at a disadvantage.

The opportunity to compete on a level playing field in general ability testing with mainstream applicants exists through this self-teaching guide.

Craig Mackellar
B of A (Vocational Education and Training)

The Competitiveness Factor

Selection for the police pool, from which police recruits are selected, is partly based on the highest scores over the entire selection process. It may not be good enough to pass in each area, you need to be competitive with the front-runners, in all areas.

Paragon Corporate Training’s Emergency Services’ Preparatory Course has been developed to help you become super competitive in all aspects of general ability testing relating to the various emergency services throughout Australia.

This program will:

• Bridge the gap between your existing knowledge and skills; and the skills and knowledge required to meet the selection criteria for the police, ambulance, prison and fire & rescue services.
• Allow graduates to perform to their full potential and therefore reflect a sound and competitive aptitude for learning.
• Focus on long term retention (memory) and competent application of knowledge and skills in a workplace context.

Learning Outcomes:

Skills you can apply after the training:

Edit text by identifying fundamental rules of punctuation and grammar;

Discern between correctly spelt and incorrectly spelt words;

Apply mathematical calculations and problem solving skills pertaining to;
numerical problems dealing with percentages
numerical problems dealing with addition. subtraction, multiplication and division.

Identify individual elements within a group of elements; (Abstract Reasoning)

Identify a rule connecting a set of figures;

Apply map-reading skills consistent with job related competencies.

Assessment Criteria

The assessments at the end of this program are intended to measure general intelligence as demonstrated by the ability to see relationships and to solve problems. A variety of verbal and quantitative material is presented, utilising a number of types of item, which are judged to contribute to an assessment of the general ability factor as described by Spearman.

Norms

Did you know that your assessment relates to your percentile ranking, not percentage scores? Percentile rankings and comparisons are provided for years 9, 10, 11, 12 & First Year Students of Technical and Further Education. Percentile rankings relate to how your score compares to others who have completed the same test. For example when dealing with percentages, a score of 17 out of 34 would mean that the candidate got 50% of the questions correct. When dealing in percentiles a score of 17 out of 34 may equate to 80 percentile. This means that 20 % of the candidates who did the test got a better mark than 17; 80% of the candidates got a mark lower than 17.

Thurstone's and Spearman's concept of general intelligence diagram

Illustrates the concept of general intelligence incorporating Thurstone's and Spearman's theories. The so-called seven primary mental abilities provide a sound model to describe the various disciplines and thought processes that contribute to a person's general intelligence. It is these factors that are the basis for most tests of ability that people are likely to encounter.

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