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AIB Diary, Newsgroup Link
Orginal Post :
On the first evening you get there, you have to fill in some huge
questionnaire thing which is basically a repeat of the original application
form - so make sure that you either know everything like your birthplace and
can remember every single one of your hobbies and any dates bewteen which
you attended military related things (cadets and aquaint visits etc), or
otherwise write all this down and take the piece of paper with you.
You fill out the questionnaire in your own time whilst hanging about your
room or the common-room-like-thing below, where all the different people on
your board can relax and chat between the different thinssg you are doing.
There's also a pool table in the common room, which is free.
After finishing it you spend the rest of the evening just hanging about in
the common room, and probably walking down the road to the pub later on in
the evening - the entire evening is just spent getting to know the rest of
your board, basically, so that when you're doing all the group tasks and
things in later days you don't feel like you've just been dropped in the
deep end with a load of strangers you've never met before.
The next day you get woken up at some ridiculous hour (6? I can't remember)
and then spend the rest of the day doing timed, written tests, with the
occasional break in the common room thing.
For some, this is the worst day - it's certainly very draining, because you
really do spend all morning and all afternoon doing exam after exam after
exam, and by the end of it your mind is rather dulled to the idea of ever
having to do any thinking ever again.
For me, it wasn't so bad, as I'd just finished my A-levels a month or so
previously, and I'm at least a little bit of an academic-type-person, so I'm
used to that type of thing.
I might also say at this point that there are so many written tests that if
you do badly in one it's not going to matter overall - and the written tests
are only half your time at the AIB in any case (I think maybe even less in
terms of final weighting, though I couldn't say for sure).
Anyway, what do you do in the tests?
Well, these aren't in order and I'm sure I've missed some out, but:
- there is a general IQ put-the-shapes-in-the-correct-order test.
Most people on my board said they could do every single question on this
paper except the very last one with ease (it took me a bit of thinking), and
considering there are about 10,000 questions (exagerration) you don't really
have to worry about this one, if it was anything like mine.
I.e, if there are 10,000 questions, then even if you can't do one of them
you've still got 9,999 right - you have plenty of time for that test...
- there is the written essay, with a selection of questions much like those
on an A-level General Studies paper.
When I was called into the Captain's room place for the Final Judgement, I
was told my essay was very good - despite the fact I'd hated all the
questions (normally I can find at least one question I like on these sort of
things), but then again I am as I said a bit of an academicy-type-person, so
this doesn't really tell you much (don't worry, we get to bits where I
messed up in a moment).
If you've ever done a General Studies paper, you'll know what to expect, if
not, go find an A-level General Studies paper.
- there are some maths papers. I'm not sure if these were all in one paper
or in a few different papers, but question types included:
a) Long multiplication, division, estimating the answers to general mental
arithmatic questions with very large numbers. Similar to what you might well
have done in the latter years at primary school/the first years of secondary
school. At least, that's the last time I ever had to do any of this.
Probably been on the AIB since 1946.
Certainly no calculators allowed - if you really want to prepare for this
just do a bit of long multiplication and basic mental arithmatic with pencil
and paper.
b) A ship goes 200km east, then 50km west, turns 50 degrees, etc, etc, etc,
where does it end up relative to it's original psotion/some other
ship/whatever.
I can't remember if you were allwoed pencil and paper for this, I seem to
think maybe not.
I was rather annoyed that I found this very hard - I'm not sure if other
people do.
- About 10,000,000,000,000,000 questions on basic english grammar/word
recognition/comparison.
I didn't anything like finish this in the time given, they say you're not
expected to neccessaily do it all but I think maybe I took this idea a bit
too far.
Ever seen an 11-plus examination for entry to a grammar school?
Maybe seen an IQ test something like this?
Use of apostrophes, hyphens, commas, opposites, words meanign the same as.
Also some strange questions where you are given some information, and then
given some possible summaries of that information, and have to choose which
summary most concisely and precisely conveys the information given.
- A test where you are given some rules as to how to catergorise a set of
information, and then a sheet on which you have to catergorise a big load of
objects (some if the rules are things like, if the word is spelled
incorrectly, put an X in this box, if the object is a fruit, put F in this
box).
I'm not sure whether they are looking more for accuracy or speed on this
test (both, obviously, but...), I went for accuracy, still not sure if that
was a good idea.
- A test where you are given a big sheet explaining something, and then have
to reduce that big sheet of explanation to bullet point form.
You could prepare for this by just taking any A4-size-ish piece of writing
explaining something and then reducing it to (a few, short) bullet points,
but once again this is the sort of thing I find fairly easy.
- Mulitple choice questions (not sure how many tests this was, 2 or 3?) on
a) General Knowledge. Like off General Studies papers, you either know the
answers or you don't, there are some which seemed ridiculous to me (naming
renaissance papers and things), some seemed OK.
In the final evaluation talk thing with the Captain, he expressed in a
rather dissapointed tone that I hadn't done to well on these, maybe thinking
someone predicted all As at A-level might theefore automatically be good at
pub quiz type questions, but I can't really see why these are considered
important.
b) World Knowledge. Meanwhile, it's obvious why this might be considerered
important. Things like capital cities, which of these Russian states is a
major oil producer, iwhich is these states is a member of this international
body, in which year was this war, who fought who in that war, why, etc. As I
say, all multiple choice.
c) Service knowledge. Which of these ships is armed with which of these
missiles, how many of these ships do we have, what is their displacement,
what sort of helicopter do they use, etc.
Read the Royal Navy website, read some nice picture book with stats about
each RN ship, this is easy to prepare for, and also easy to fail if you
don't prepare for it, as these things are hardly common general knowledge.
I was told I did well on this.
Um, that's all the written tests I can remember.
I was told overall my score on the written tests was "average, pretty much
in the middle of what all candidates get".
I was amused at the slightly different atmosphere of the tests to exams at
college/school - when we finsihed our exams we were asked to put our exam
papers on the top left of our desks, I wasn't really paying enough attention
and put it on the top right, and so the RM sergeant at the point
invigilating had a go at me - "LISTEN in future".
I certainly put my pen down on the dot at the end of each exam...
The last of the written exams isn't actually a test at all but is rather an
explantion and example of how the next day's discussion exercise will go,
and then you go off to the gym and learn all the things you'll need to know
for the next day's gym tasks, but as this is teaching you and not assessing
you, no preparetion is needed.
That evening you relax some more, play more pool, go down the pub again,
back by a certain time again (11? 12?), to bed.
Next day, was, for me, DAY OF DOOM.
I'm sure I'm being immensely biased and bitter here, so maybe you should
take no heed of this, but as far as I could tell what they are looking for
in both the leadership tasks and the discussion exercise is:
a) Confidence
b) Assertiveness
The two most imporant abilities in potential leaders?
It would appear the RN thinks so, I suppose if you are talking about
"leaders", who lead, who say "We are doing this, but doing X, then Y, then
Z, you will do this and you will do that, get on with it", I suppose they're
right.
As for whether these are as important for /managers/ I'm not so sure - poor
comprehensive school me, but I've always learnt to do things in groups,
where you let each person have a go at speaking, and if someone has a good
idea then you do that - and I'm not used to a situation where one person is
in charge, that's that, and if they aren't calling every single shot then
they don't deserve to be in charge.
Oh, and there was Sea Cadets, where you just did whatever the staff told you
to do and the cadets just followed.
I suppose maybe, with the nature of military rank, I would be a useless
leader, but all the same....I WILL STOP RAMBLING NOW.
Anyway, yes, what do you actually do?
The point I was trying to make in all the above - which I think I failed to
reach - is that you /must/ take charge, take the lead, assert yourself, have
the confidence to make a decsison and then speak, loudly, as to what that
decision is.
On the 2nd main day of the AIB, you do two things: leadership tasks, and the
discussion exercise.
It varies which one you do first - some are doing one while others are doing
the other.
After those you then do 2 interviews.
I did the leadership tasks first.
With the other 3 people on your board, you have 3 tasks where you are just a
person for the others to manage, and one task where you are the designated
leader and are put very much in charge (incidently, 2 of these tasks are
over blue mats, 2 are over genuine pools of water).
As far as the practical sid of actually doing the tasks - learning to ue
planks and counter balacning and things - you are told everything you need
to know the evening before (and there's also lots of stuff written on the
wall of the common-room-thing explaining it all), so there's no real need to
worry, and it's not really on the practical side of things they're actually
testing you.
And it's also rather fun - it's amusing when there's 4 people holding
together a huge contraption of carefully balanced planks, poles, ropes and
boxes all suddenly collapses, people and pieces and water going everywhere.
As for the leadership side of things...
Well, lets explain how /not/ to do it, the case in question being the task I
led.
You are given cards detailing what your task will involve before all the
tasks start, and get some time - 10, 15 minutes? - to plan what you are
going to do, before all the actual tasks begin, so when it comes to your
turn you should already know what you have in mind.
About a minute before the end of the planning time I thought I'd worked out
how I could do my task, leaving me not much time to go over it all again in
my head a few times...it would get worse...
I think I must have done /really/ badly, considering I've alreay forgotten
how half of it went.
First of all, I was given the card again, and told to memorise all the
information, before handing the card back, and shouting out both the
information and then my plan to my team, standing on the other side of the
pool of water.
I took the card, and read it.
Faced my team.
And asked for the card back again.
Read it again for about 15 seconds more.
Faced my team again.
And read the task out.
"I think I'd better just mention that <some minor detail I'd forgotten about
when reading out the plan>", called out the Petty Officer standing there.
Still for the most part unfazed, I read out my plan, probably not scoring to
many marks for my very quiet and eternally rather deferential voice, "but at
least I know what I'm going to do", I thought.
The task begun. Very quickly, someone else on my board realised that my idea
of "picking up those two ammo boxes" was rather difficult, considering they
were balanced on either end of a plank.
I felt rather unhappy at this, considering the other person had done one AIB
before (that time for A-level sponsorship), and I learned later he had had
my task - and so had seen that problem before.
I suppose I should have realised that from teh card in any case, and then
again I also suppose that if I had pulled off a graceful recoery from this
point in all would have been OK. If only...
"Can't we pick up both ammo boxes at once?" I suggested.
"They're too heavy" said someone else.
This was not going well...
Another person in my team suggested that the two ammo boxes could be slid
together to the middle of the box the plank was resting on, and then sort of
slif off from there on to a another plank we could put out towards them.
This worked...
At this point, it all becomes a bit hazy, but somehow I got into a very
brief argument/discussion type thing with the person who had originally
mentioned the ammo boxes couldn't be picked up straight away - not a proper
shouting argument, just them saying "But we can't do that because..." and me
saying "Well, yeah, but we can't do that because...", but all the same this
isn't quite how you're supposed to do leadership tasks at the AIB - as I
said earlier, I'm used to working in grips, where this would have been
acceptable, but at the AIB it is quite clearly not.
So, after about 20 seconds of this, I decided that I couldn't take up my
entire alloted leadership task time with this (they are maybe 15 minutes
long?), and, incidicated okay, we'd do what he said.
It then goes very hazy, but somehow the person in question then took over my
entire leadership task altogether, and it really did end up with him being
totally in charge, with me making occasional comments more as one of the
other people on my board than as leader.
I suppose this is probably my fault for not being assertive enough (the
other person was given a university cadetship of thousands of pounds a year
for university, after all), but all the same it felt to me rather like a
competition with the rest of my board, something I thought the AIB isn't
supposed to be.
So, um, yes, disaster. I'm not sure if it was on this task or the other
person's wet task we all ended up in the water, but it hardly matters.
Then we were driven back to the main board building, had a (very very very)
quick shower, and then we went for the discussion exercise.
What a discussion exercise entails is, as I said, explained to you the
previous day, but in any case for the first bit of said exercise you just
read lots of background information on a given situation - I wouldn't want
to be too specific about what mine was in case you get the same one, so I'll
just say a sort of situation you might get: you are in a group out sailing,
or out walking, or out basically somewhere or other in a group of people,
and are given all the background nformaion on who is in your group of
people, what their abilities are, what equipment you have, a map of where
you are, etc.
You are allowed to make notes on a piece of paper.
Then the 4 of you bundle into the interview room, where the real "fun"
begins.
An officer in said room tells you how the situation has changed - something
has blown up, someone has been injured, sunk, lost, basically something has
gone terribly wrong.
Then the timer starts, and your group must discuss amongst itself what
should be done to deal with this crisis, using what you remember, and your
notes, to help come to a conclusion.
For the 10 minutes or whatever it is you get, the 4 candidates sit roun a
table discussing whatyou should do, whilst all the big important assess-ory
people look on, taking notes on /you/.
What happened in my discussion exercise? The vastly confident public school
boy who had so wonderfully taken over my leadership task from me (and had, I
forgot to mention, fully completed his own with seeming total ease) once
again stole the show, saying "Right then, I think we should do this, because
X Y Z, and maybe this, yada yada yada". The member of my group who had
suggested how we deal with the ammo boxes said a fair amount as well. I
occasionally injected comments or observations. The 4th member of my board
remainded TOTALLY and UTTERLY silent the entire time.
At the end of the allotted time, we had reached a conclusion, which was then
delivered to the board.
Your notes are then hidden.
Back to how you might prepare for this...um...I don't know.
Like the leadership tasks, except maybe even more so, they're testing
assertiveness and confidence to put your ideas forward - I should imagine a
vital skill for leaders, as there's no point having good ideas if you are
unable to put them across to other people.
So yes.
Learn to be assertive and confident.
Then the officer conducted this test throws lots of questions at each board
member in turn in quick succession, testing both what you remember from the
original briefing, from the update at the begginning of the discussion, and
from what you remember from the discussion itself - "Why did you do this?
What time was it when you left? What time does it get dark? WHo does this?
Why did you decide to mkae that person do that? If it's 5km to X, how long
will it take you?".
Everyone on my board, including me, (I think), managed to deal with this
reasonably well, and not get overly stressed out or panicked by the pace of
things, although all of us consistently got the mental arithmatic questions
involvig working out the times to places wrong.
Then some other stuff happens, you say if you personally agree whith your
group's original conclusion, yada yada, it's all tidily ended.
Then there are two interviews, with no set order - refer to 1st and 2nd in
the order I took them.
The first is the big scary interview, with the Captain of the Board, a
"military expert" or whatever they call it (in my case some obscenely high
ranking Royal Marine officer), and a school headmaster.
You are asked...well...everything.
Current affairs? As Mr Wafu says, make sure you have been reading the World
Affairs sections of lots of papers recently.
Sierra Leone? Northern Ireland? Indonesia? Know the current situation in
each world hot spot, and be able to point to it on a map.
(I personally got rather overly-stressed and managed to mix up Sierra Leone
and, um, oh, some other African country, reaslising my mistake when I got to
the second of the two countries and said "Ah, hang on, that last country i
was talking about, I meant X, not Y, /this/ one is Y).
Naval knowledge? same sort of thing as the multiple choice test on the first
day, they can point to a picture of some naval ship/hardware and ask you to
name it.
What stuff is planned for the Royal Navy in 10 years time?
What is the new anti air destroyer all about?
Why you want to join the Navy? Why's it right to kill people? What if you
get killed? What can you offer the Navy? What are the two most important
qualities Rn officers must possess? Why do we have a nuclear deterrent?
And other such "Have you /really/ thought this whole joining the Navy thig
through?" questions.
I also got some questions of books I'd read recently from the Headmaster -
I'm not sure what else the headmaster can ask you, general
thinky-interview-intellectual type questions, I suppose.
Anyway, they asked god knows how many questions, even if you think long and
hard about an answer for each of the questions I mention, they'll likely to
ask you about something totally different - it's all about thinking on your
feet.
And stuff.
So just make sure you've thought through why the Navy is as it is, why you
want to join it, etc, etc, do some thinking.
A point of amusement, it was hot in my suit, a hot room, and I was doing a
lot of talking - and my voice gave out half way throuhg said interview. I
was given a sip of water from one of the interviewers handy glasses, and
continued straight away - I can't help but think maybe that contributed to
me being rather stressed by the time it came to that map of Africa and
making a silly mistake, still...
The last interview is a personal one, about you, if you don't know your own
family/friends/etc situation without revising/preparing., then, er, I'm sure
you do.
Then after a short time of worrying in the common-room-type-thing, you each
board is called and sits in the same waiting room used for the interviews,
and one by one you care called to the room wirh noone else but the Captain
in now where you are informed of how well you are done, each seprate bit and
overall.
I, er, didn't do so well.
"I'm sure you'll change a lot at university, maybe you'll try again".
Maybe not...
Those who passed stay on another night for a medical exam the next day, the
others...leave.
The super-confident public school boy got a university cadetship, the
reasonably confident person from Durham who didn't seem to like me very much
got offered a place at Dartmouth straight away - or go to university and
have to do the AIB again in 3 years time - me and the person who had been
totalyl silent in the discussion exercise didn't even get that.
