Student handout

Where interests and skills intersect

Many organizations use “skills and assessment” tests to ascertain the suitability of candidates for a
particular position or, when already employed by the company, for a career in management or other
advanced positions. Below are a few pre-hire assessment questions. This is not an actual test, but
shows a sample of what you may see on various skills and assessment tests. It was created based
on information from a variety of sources.

1. Which of the following is the least?

a. 0.215
b. 0.512
c. 0.0125
d. 0.15

2. The average weight for a group of 20 women is 59 kg. If the average weight for 3/4 of these women is
64 kg, what is the average weight for the rest of the women?
a. 44 kg
b. 50 kg
c. 61 kg
d. 25 kg

3. A memo distributed to customers says:

St. Albert is converting to a tag-a-bag collection system for picking up garbage. Each household must buy
tags from City Hall at a cost of $2.00 each. This fee is in addition to the regular monthly garbage collection
rate of $20.00 per household. Each household may purchase up to 20 tags at a time, and may put out up to
three bags of garbage at a time. On garbage day, residents must place one tag on each bag of garbage set
out for pickup. Twice a year the regular pickup schedule will be changed, and the number of bags that may
be put out will be increased to five bags per household.
Based on this memo, what is the maximum number of tags each household may use during the regular
pickup schedule?
a. 1
b. 3
c. 5
d. 20

4. Employees at your office are permitted three “happy Fridays” per year—days off that do not require
employees to use vacation time. Employees have been taking the days as partial days, reporting one-half
or one-quarter of a happy Friday. However, the personnel manager has determined that some employees
have been abusing the luxury, taking too much time, while others have not taken any. The system has
become inequitable. She wants to require all employees to take their happy Fridays as full days and to
ensure that everyone takes the three days as a necessary break from the demands of their jobs. Write a
letter to the personnel manager explaining whether or not you are in favor of this new happy Fridays policy,
and state why.