{"id":188,"date":"2008-07-15T21:00:13","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T21:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/?p=188"},"modified":"2008-07-15T21:00:13","modified_gmt":"2008-07-15T21:00:13","slug":"european-space-agency-astronaut-example-test-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/15\/european-space-agency-astronaut-example-test-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"European Space Agency Astronaut Example Test Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESA have published a set of example psychological tests<\/a> to familiarise people with the 2nd phase of the Astronaut applications<\/a>. Apart from it being interesting doing astronaut testing, it’s actually a lot of fun too. I even had my 7 year old daughter doing “astronaut maths”<\/em> with me! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

The English questions<\/strong><\/span> are pretty straight forward for a native English speaker, typical questions involve picking the correct word to complete a sentence e.g.<\/p>\n

“Peter has gone to the station, ….. he?”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. hasn’t<\/li>\n
  2. isn’t<\/li>\n
  3. didn’t<\/li>\n
  4. doesn’t<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Having said that I was a little surprised to only get 61 out of 64 correct<\/strong>. There was one question that I failed to answer in the allotted time (yes it’s a timed test) but the quiz doesn’t give you the answers or tell you which questions you got wrong, so 2 were a mystery.<\/p>\n

    The maths test <\/strong><\/span>was right up my street however and really enjoyable. One thing that wasn’t clear was whether a calculator or paper and pad were allowed, as I assumed they were not<\/span>. Typical questions were things like:<\/p>\n

    All points within an area have the same distance to a straight line. Which shape results?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Sphere<\/li>\n
    2. Cylinder<\/li>\n
    3. Dice<\/li>\n
    4. Octahedron<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Tee hee, I loved that one. Other questions:<\/p>\n

      A fast train takes 9 hours at a speed of 72 km\/h. How long would the train take if it went 8 km\/h faster?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      This is a pretty simple fractions question, made slightly more complicated because the fraction is the wrong way round, if that makes any sense?<\/p>\n

      At Frankfurt airport a passenger wants to get from Terminal A to Terminal B. On foot it would take him 3 minutes, on the conveyor belt 2 minutes. How long would it take him if he walks on the conveyor belt? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      Hoho this question really had me going. I know it’s another simple fractions question but for some reason the shapes in my head didn’t quite fit together so I had to resort to doing it the long hand way. I assumed an arbitrary distance and simply did the maths.<\/p>\n

      A student takes 15 seconds for a 100m sprint. How long does he take if he runs 2 km\/h faster due to a following wind? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      This was the toughest question to do in my head by far. It took a while to crunch the numbers, but it’s doable.<\/p>\n

      My result: 20 out of 20 correct<\/strong>, sweet! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

      The concentration test<\/strong><\/span> was fun too. Basically you’re shown a load of triangles with a variety of orientations, colours and dots. E.g a red triangle, pointing up, with 3 dots. You are then given a couple of rules to follow and then shown 2 triangle sequentially in turn and asked which of the 2 rules apply (or none). The trick is that you not only have to memorise the rules, but also the triangle seen on the previous screen. I guess it sounds more complicated that it is, try it, it’s fun. And I got them all right, which is always nice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      The memory test<\/strong><\/span> is a lot tougher though. You are shown a series of shapes and associated 2 digit numbers in pairs. E.g a red circle and the number 34. Then you are shown the shape and asked to remember the number, simple right? No.<\/p>\n

      First you are shown 8 pairs, so 16 pieces of information in total<\/strong>, before being shown the first shape to remember the number for. Then for each question, you are given 2 more shape \/ number pairs to remember. This is all timed.<\/p>\n

      Note the human mind is normally only able to remember 5-8 items <\/strong>of information in its short term memory, so this is an exceptionally tough test, well I think so anyway. That’s probably reflected in my less than glowing score, which I won’t embarrass myself by sharing. Needless to say, this area needs some work.<\/p>\n

      The perception test<\/strong><\/span> was the easiest by far. You are shown 9 dials with numbers from 1 to 8. Each is either black or white, and round or square. You are told to concentrate on only 1 kind of dial and remember the numbers. The trick comes from the fact you only have about 2 seconds to correctly identify the dials and remember the numbers, in the right order of course. I got 40 out of 40 <\/strong>of course.<\/p>\n

      The last test is a Technics test which basically means a mix of simple engineering type questions, e.g. electrical circuits and mechanics. One question for example is:<\/p>\n

      What is a lightning conductor usually made of?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      Slightly frustratingly I only managed 75% (15 out of 20<\/strong>) which is rather annoying really as I consider general engineering knowledge to be a forte of mine.\u00a0 Either way, all the tests were a load of fun and if this is what I’ve got to look forward to for a possible 2nd round, it’s going to be a blast.\u00a0 Come on ESA, where’s my invite?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

      \n

      \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      ESA have published a set of example psychological tests to familiarise people with the 2nd phase of the Astronaut applications. Apart from it being interesting doing astronaut testing, it’s actually a lot of fun too. I even had my 7 year old daughter doing “astronaut maths” with me! \ud83d\ude09 The English questions are pretty straight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,30,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-astronaut-application","8":"tag-astronaut-training","9":"tag-esa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}