Exam 6601 Conductor 6601 Hiring Process

[MTAhopefullMatt]

There were some tricky questions and one or two whose answers I changed when reviewing the test before I left the exam site. All I can do is hope for the best - I want to move beyond exam questions and actually get hired for the job.

[Dred]

Thanks for the responses from the people who didn't find it all that easy. One of the reasons I posted my qualifications was that I do feel over qualified for this job, highly overqualified, and I was very surprised to find how difficult the test was considering the pay and the fact you only need a high school diploma. 

 

I believe I may have figured out why so many people found this test easy. I think the reason was that it wasn't asking questions which we wouldn't know, they didn't ask who the 5th president of the United States was. The questions they asked you could usually find an answer or think you are choosing the correct answer, but in reality you are choosing the incorrect answer.

 

You had to be very careful not to make any mistakes. For example, to show you how careful I am on tests like these, I go through every answer even when I think I found the correct answer. I do this to make sure I do not make any stupid mistakes. This was very time consuming on this test because of how complicated the questions were. I felt like I was working at a very fast pace and still only had enough time to finish.

 

Maybe I'm wrong guys and we all scored well and I am just over thinking it. I guess we will see when we can check our answers. 

 

I have noticed that the last FDNY city exam was much harder than the one I took prior that was thrown out. It seems they are making these tests harder, and putting in a lot of tough questions with a lot of reading. I think they want to make sure we are all good with the English language.

 

I still can't believe how many people were finishing the test early. If you want these jobs you have to be 100% certain you didn't make any stupid mistakes in this economy. By leaving early there is no way you were making sure of this.  

Edited May 22, 2016 by Dred

[The Saniter]

 

 I go through every answer even when I think I found the correct answer. I do this to make sure I do not make any stupid mistakes.

 

I still can't believe how many people were finishing the test early. If you want these jobs you have to be 100% certain you didn't make any stupid mistakes in this economy. By leaving early there is no way you were making sure of this.  

I did the same thing. I think I was there about 2.5 hrs making sure things were on point. With the type of money you could make on this job with OT, those extra minutes you have after the exam is over is crucial looking over your answers.

[Y2Julio]

On the previous one, got one wrong, finished it in less than hour (possibly even less, it's been over 4 years so I don't remember). All on a lowly high school diploma. Unless you've got any transportation experience, I don't know how you consider yourself overqualified. Being a conductor isn't the same as being a burger flipper.

[Dred]

Y2Julio, I think they are making the tests harder. They did it with the FDNY test, the 2nd one was much more difficult. The 1st one was so ridiculously easy, No way you would finish this one in less than an hour, the questions were very long and detailed. Each one was like that.

 

Hopefully I'm not too overqualified, I am looking forward to the job. I can't work in the private sector because of a stupid disability I developed at a later age so am forced to take a city job now. City is the only place that will hire people like me.

 

However, It is hard not to feel overqualified when you are a CPA and have a masters in taxation. I hope that is understandable. 

 

I'm being investigated by the FDNY right now, passed everything except background investigation, if that is passed I'm going to the FDNY. 

 

I love the subway and like being down in the tunnels, so would be looking forward to a job as a conductor. You can't beat the FDNY though, so that will be my 1st pick. This will be backup. 

Edited May 23, 2016 by Dred

[BriTish]

My goal was to score perfectly and to not leave the testing room until I was sure of this or they kicked me out. It's a good sign when I'm up to question 41, and someone raises their hand to alert the procter that they have completed the exam. It's also a good sign when the guy sitting next to me, that I could tell was frustrated with the questions and was generally 10 questions behind me, also manages to complete the test before me. The test was generally easy in the sense that the answers were generally right in front of you. But if you're not the type to pay attention to details, you may have gotten some answers wrong. My method was to eliminate the obviously wrong answers, analyze the other options, mark my answers on that protest sheet first while leaving a question mark next to the questions I wanted to review after going through all 80 questions, then after making certain that I had all the correct answers, fill out the bubbles on the scantron sheet. That took almost 2.5 hours. I am confident that anyone who left before me, likely scored worse than me.

Edited May 23, 2016 by BriTish

[mattfutureconductor5]

I Just got finished taking the conductor 6601 exam. I went into it thinking it would be easy based on what almost all of you have said here about the exam. I found it to be actually quite challenging. I easily took the whole 3 hours, and could have easily used another 2 or 3 hours to check over my answers. I am at a loss on why I found it difficult while most of you found it easy. 

 

While there were some easy questions, there were also many challenging questions. Now do not get me wrong here, all the information was on there to answer the question correctly, you just had to really use your head, which I didn't expect on this exam. 

 

I found a large amount of the questions tricky, you had to be extremely careful with many of them. If English was not your first language then there is no way you are going to do well on this test. 

 

What I think is that many of you underestimated the questions, many of them were designed to slip you up if you were not careful. While they may have seemed easy to find an answer, you may have been tricked into choosing the wrong one. 

 

I panicked with time at certain points, and had to skip whole questions for later because my head was hurting and couldn't do the thinking required to do them. This to me is just crazy on an exam for a conductor. Because so many of you said it was easy, I was taking my time in the beginning when I should have been rushing through the easy ones to spend more time on the harder ones. 

 

To make everything even more surprising, I went back and checked some I marked before I ran out of time. I actually caught a mistake on one and couldn't believe I got tricked, I almost never change answers with my final review.

 

This was really a difficult test. I can not see how so many of you found it easy. 

 

What I have found from experience is that tests I have found difficult, I normally always have scored much higher than the people who said they were easy, and many times scored the highest grade in the class on those exams.

 

Your first thought is going to be, I'm probably just stupid and that would be totally OK. Please let me tell you my qualifications.

 

English first language

University degree in accounting with a 3.9 GPA in major.

Masters degree in taxation with a high GPA around 3.7, I actually forgot what it is.

 

I am a CPA, (certified public accountant), so yes I passed that very difficult exam, ask anyone who has taken it, harder than the exam to become a lawyer. 

 

For other city tests I have taken, I only took the last two FDNY city tests, scored 100 on them and scored a very low list number, easily got called for both of them. The 1st FDNY test I took I found that to be extremely easy, the 2nd most recent one was much harder. 

 

I consider myself a very good test taker, very careful and have scored the highest grade on many exams in my classes at the university.

 

I am an extremely careful test taker, I have lots of work experience in taxes where being careful is a priority.  

 

That being said I am sure I scored close to 100% on this test, but to say it was easy is totally an understatement. 

 

Please, is there anyone here who will admit that the test was also quite challenging? I honestly feel so stupid right now that I am the only one who found it challanging.

 

Honesty, no one stated the test is going to easy, they say they think it easy since some of the veteran didnt use study guides

 

If it was too easy , the whole wide world can pass this test,lol. I find it challenging on some answer, took me two hour and half to finish.

Dont need to bragg about your smart ness,

That is your accomplishment, keep it to yourself.

Y2Julio, I think they are making the tests harder. They did it with the FDNY test, the 2nd one was much more difficult. The 1st one was so ridiculously easy, No way you would finish this one in less than an hour, the questions were very long and detailed. Each one was like that.

 

Hopefully I'm not too overqualified, I am looking forward to the job. I can't work in the private sector because of a stupid disability I developed at a later age so am forced to take a city job now. City is the only place that will hire people like me.

 

However, It is hard not to feel overqualified when you are a CPA and have a masters in taxation. I hope that is understandable. 

 

I'm being investigated by the FDNY right now, passed everything except background investigation, if that is passed I'm going to the FDNY. 

 

I love the subway and like being down in the tunnels, so would be looking forward to a job as a conductor. You can't beat the FDNY though, so that will be my 1st pick. This will be backup.

 

 

Same with me, i am waiting for nypd exam to come and then take it, and also attend the cadets. Police is my first choice, good luck to you

[Dred]

My goal was to score perfectly and to not leave the testing room until I was sure of this or they kicked me out. It's a good sign when I'm up to question 41, and someone raises their hand to alert the procter that they have completed the exam. It's also a good sign when the guy sitting next to me, that I could tell was frustrated with the questions and was generally 10 questions behind me, also manages to complete the test before me. The test was generally easy in the sense that the answers were generally right in front of you. But if you're not the type to pay attention to details, you may have gotten some answers wrong. My method was to eliminate the obviously wrong answers, analyze the other options, mark my answers on that protest sheet first while leaving a question mark next to the questions I wanted to review after going through all 80 questions, then after making certain that I had all the correct answers, fill out the bubbles on the scantron sheet. That took almost 2.5 hours. I am confident that anyone who left before me, likely scored worse than me.

 

It took me also about 2.5 hours to complete all the questions, which only gave me about 30 minutes to check over some I have specifically marked.

 

What I do is go through the test and skip any questions that seem difficult or will need extra time, I do this not to spend too much time on any question. There was a few of these surprisingly. I then come back to these questions. 

 

I also skipped a couple questions that were complex because It seemed that I was starting to panic at one point in the test and my mind went blank. There was so much information to go through, and you had to be extra careful.

 

Even when I found an acceptable answer, I still went through all the other answers looking for why they were wrong. This added a lot of extra time.

 

I agree with you 100%, if you finished before 2 to 2.5 hours, you probably didn't score close to 100%. Lots of people left early in my class. Only 3 people waited to the very end.

 

This is a very good thing that the test was difficult, this means I am almost guaranteed to get 100% on it while most people will not do so well. The last thing I want is 3000 people who got 100 on it. I am pretty confident I got 100% of them right, I did not have to take a guess on any. However, I always seem to make about 1 stupid mistake per test, but I should definitely have a high list number. Unless they throw a lot of hard questions out to make it easier for the people who scored badly. I don't think they will do this because all the questions were fair, except the one with two answers.

 

I'm not saying it was hard in that I couldn't answer the questions, I am saying it was a hard test because there was so much to read and figure out in such a short time. 

 

We'll see how everybody does. Anyone have an idea when the scores come out or we can check our answers?

[RedViper90]

It took me also about 2.5 hours to complete all the questions, which only gave me about 30 minutes to check over some I have specifically marked.

 

What I do is go through the test and skip any questions that seem difficult or will need extra time, I do this not to spend too much time on any question. There was a few of these surprisingly. I then come back to these questions.

 

I also skipped a couple questions that were complex because It seemed that I was starting to panic at one point in the test and my mind went blank. There was so much information to go through, and you had to be extra careful.

 

Even when I found an acceptable answer, I still went through all the other answers looking for why they were wrong. This added a lot of extra time.

 

I agree with you 100%, if you finished before 2 to 2.5 hours, you probably didn't score close to 100%. Lots of people left early in my class. Only 3 people waited to the very end.

 

This is a very good thing that the test was difficult, this means I am almost guaranteed to get 100% on it while most people will not do so well. The last thing I want is 3000 people who got 100 on it. I am pretty confident I got 100% of them right, I did not have to take a guess on any. However, I always seem to make about 1 stupid mistake per test, but I should definitely have a high list number. Unless they throw a lot of hard questions out to make it easier for the people who scored badly. I don't think they will do this because all the questions were fair, except the one with two answers.

 

I'm not saying it was hard in that I couldn't answer the questions, I am saying it was a hard test because there was so much to read and figure out in such a short time.

 

We'll see how everybody does. Anyone have an idea when the scores come out or we can check our answers?

Uh oh, looks like you didn't pay enough attention. They mentioned when the answers will be released several times. They even gave you an answer key to write down your choices along with the release date on it. Looks like you might have to go and get a PHD. Lol Edited May 23, 2016 by RedViper90

[Dred]

I have good achievements because I am a good test taker, I never said I was a good worker or anything else. I only listed my achievements to show you that I was a good test taker as you have to be a good test taker to achieve them. Listing my test taking achievements was very important to support my opinion of it being a difficult test. 

 

I don't know why you guys care what I say my achievements are on the forum. Who cares? You won't ever know me personally unless you also got a 100 on the test,  .

 

If someone came on this forum who said he was a Medical Doctor, I would just be like why the heck are you taking this conductor test if you are a medical doctor. I would not even think to tell him not to list his achievements, I would actually find it quite interesting to know what other peoples achievements are if they are worthy of mentioning. I wouldn't mind knowing who my competition was.

 

Remember, you have to be competitive to get the job, that is what we are all after here isn't it? 

 

All that being said nobody ever mentioned when the test results would be available, my proctor surely didn't at the test date. Maybe someone listed them on this forum already, but I didn't go through all 30 pages to find them. 

Edited May 23, 2016 by Dred

[The Saniter]

The answer key should be available on MTA Website on July 8 I believe

[mattfutureconductor5]

The answer key should be available on MTA Website on July 8 I believe

Yes. After a few months, they send the result

, ugh this stupid college wont transfer me to four year w/e guess i give up once i done witn two years.

 

Conductor rest of my lfie, i dont really care what i do, i think i am done with college. Two year four years what the difference, we still get awesome jobs,

I want to santiation or bus driver, they only requierd two years college at least. Police too but need four year to be like a seargeant or higher rank.

Sorry about my typing skills, lol,

Anybody want to share what u think was the hardest quetstoon?

[transitnyc]

Hi;

 

Where about Staten Island are you?  Just wondering because I am in Staten Island too.  

Just curious if you are a CPA are you not taking a big pay cut to work as a conductor?  Why not stay in private practice?

 

Thanks.

 

I Just got finished taking the conductor 6601 exam. I went into it thinking it would be easy based on what almost all of you have said here about the exam. I found it to be actually quite challenging. I easily took the whole 3 hours, and could have easily used another 2 or 3 hours to check over my answers. I am at a loss on why I found it difficult while most of you found it easy. 

 

While there were some easy questions, there were also many challenging questions. Now do not get me wrong here, all the information was on there to answer the question correctly, you just had to really use your head, which I didn't expect on this exam. 

 

I found a large amount of the questions tricky, you had to be extremely careful with many of them. If English was not your first language then there is no way you are going to do well on this test. 

 

What I think is that many of you underestimated the questions, many of them were designed to slip you up if you were not careful. While they may have seemed easy to find an answer, you may have been tricked into choosing the wrong one. 

 

I panicked with time at certain points, and had to skip whole questions for later because my head was hurting and couldn't do the thinking required to do them. This to me is just crazy on an exam for a conductor. Because so many of you said it was easy, I was taking my time in the beginning when I should have been rushing through the easy ones to spend more time on the harder ones. 

 

To make everything even more surprising, I went back and checked some I marked before I ran out of time. I actually caught a mistake on one and couldn't believe I got tricked, I almost never change answers with my final review.

 

This was really a difficult test. I can not see how so many of you found it easy. 

 

What I have found from experience is that tests I have found difficult, I normally always have scored much higher than the people who said they were easy, and many times scored the highest grade in the class on those exams.

 

Your first thought is going to be, I'm probably just stupid and that would be totally OK. Please let me tell you my qualifications.

 

English first language

University degree in accounting with a 3.9 GPA in major.

Masters degree in taxation with a high GPA around 3.7, I actually forgot what it is.

 

I am a CPA, (certified public accountant), so yes I passed that very difficult exam, ask anyone who has taken it, harder than the exam to become a lawyer. 

 

For other city tests I have taken, I only took the last two FDNY city tests, scored 100 on them and scored a very low list number, easily got called for both of them. The 1st FDNY test I took I found that to be extremely easy, the 2nd most recent one was much harder. 

 

I consider myself a very good test taker, very careful and have scored the highest grade on many exams in my classes at the university.

 

I am an extremely careful test taker, I have lots of work experience in taxes where being careful is a priority.  

 

That being said I am sure I scored close to 100% on this test, but to say it was easy is totally an understatement. 

 

Please, is there anyone here who will admit that the test was also quite challenging? I honestly feel so stupid right now that I am the only one who found it challanging. 

[Dred]

transitnyc, that is a very good question why I wouldn't work as a CPA, because there is a pay cut.

 

Part of the reason is I didn't really work much during the last 10 years, just enough to get the experience required to become a CPA. I traveled the world instead. I didn't want to work and waste my youth working. I am happy I made that decision, because as I got older, traveling isn't as fun because you can't meet people as easy being older. Being younger and traveling allows you to meet lots of university students from around the world.

 

Now that I am pushing into my late 30's and don't have much work experience, getting a job in the private sector will be difficult. In a way I can consider myself having almost no work experience as I only have worked less than 2 years in the last 15 years. 

 

The other issue is working in a office is not fun, it tends to drive me crazy to be stuck in an office surrounded by the same miserable people. Office work seems to make everybody miserable because it is miserable work you do. I can't stand going to work every day in good moods to be around people is always bad moods. These people just don't want to admit that working in an office sucks.

 

I also realize I have a NYC or Staten Island work mentality. This means I don't want to do any additional work and when 5:00PM comes around I want to go home. My last job as an accountant had all these idiots who would stay 2 hours late and come in an hour early to try and look good to the boss. I can't get myself to drop to those levels to get ahead. So a city job it is for me, where everybody has this city work mentality of pretty much only doing what is required of you. Where everybody accepts that you don't stay late if you are not getting paid for it. Where you don't have bosses always worried about the profits.

 

City job is where it is at these days, especially since they really are getting overpaid for their work compared to the private sector. In the past the private sector paid a lot more, now anymore. With the benefits you get and the more relaxed work atmosphere, you can't beat the public sector. Even someone like me who is a CPA is better off working for the city, and trust me I have calculated the numbers and factored in quality of life and promotions. Jobs like the NYPD or NYFD with their 20 year half pay retirement is like winning the lottery. That is so much money as you don't get pensions anymore in the private work sector.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Dred

[juconyc]

transitnyc, that is a very good question why I wouldn't work as a CPA, because there is a pay cut.

 

Part of the reason is I didn't really work much during the last 10 years, just enough to get the experience required to become a CPA. I traveled the world instead. I didn't want to work and waste my youth working. I am happy I made that decision, because as I got older, traveling isn't as fun because you can't meet people as easy being older. Being younger and traveling allows you to meet lots of university students from around the world.

 

Now that I am pushing into my late 30's and don't have much work experience, getting a job in the private sector will be difficult. In a way I can consider myself having almost no work experience as I only have worked less than 2 years in the last 15 years. 

 

The other issue is working in a office is not fun, it tends to drive me crazy to be stuck in an office surrounded by the same miserable people. Office work seems to make everybody miserable because it is miserable work you do. I can't stand going to work every day in good moods to be around people is always bad moods. These people just don't want to admit that working in an office sucks.

 

I also realize I have a NYC or Staten Island work mentality. This means I don't want to do any additional work and when 5:00PM comes around I want to go home. My last job as an accountant had all these idiots who would stay 2 hours late and come in an hour early to try and look good to the boss. I can't get myself to drop to those levels to get ahead. So a city job it is for me, where everybody has this city work mentality of pretty much only doing what is required of you. Where everybody accepts that you don't stay late if you are not getting paid for it. Where you don't have bosses always worried about the profits.

 

City job is where it is at these days, especially since they really are getting overpaid for their work compared to the private sector. In the past the private sector paid a lot more, now anymore. With the benefits you get and the more relaxed work atmosphere, you can't beat the public sector. Even someone like me who is a CPA is better off working for the city, and trust me I have calculated the numbers and factored in quality of life and promotions. Jobs like the NYPD or NYFD with their 20 year half pay retirement is like winning the lottery. That is so much money as you don't get pensions anymore in the private work sector.

My brother you have no idea and sound just as clueless as other new yorkers when it comes to the work we put in.... you might as well go back to the private sector.. Because working for transit there is no going home at 5pm everyday...You probably couldnt handle 10 people at your cab window asking for directions either.... so before you go making assumptions work a REGULAR job first since you havent had no work experience in the past 15 years..Transit employees work tirelessly and to no merit....never get a thank you either....

[candorgreen]

I Just got finished taking the conductor 6601 exam. I went into it thinking it would be easy based on what almost all of you have said here about the exam. I found it to be actually quite challenging. I easily took the whole 3 hours, and could have easily used another 2 or 3 hours to check over my answers. I am at a loss on why I found it difficult while most of you found it easy. 

 

While there were some easy questions, there were also many challenging questions. Now do not get me wrong here, all the information was on there to answer the question correctly, you just had to really use your head, which I didn't expect on this exam. 

 

I found a large amount of the questions tricky, you had to be extremely careful with many of them. If English was not your first language then there is no way you are going to do well on this test. 

 

What I think is that many of you underestimated the questions, many of them were designed to slip you up if you were not careful. While they may have seemed easy to find an answer, you may have been tricked into choosing the wrong one. 

 

I panicked with time at certain points, and had to skip whole questions for later because my head was hurting and couldn't do the thinking required to do them. This to me is just crazy on an exam for a conductor. Because so many of you said it was easy, I was taking my time in the beginning when I should have been rushing through the easy ones to spend more time on the harder ones. 

 

To make everything even more surprising, I went back and checked some I marked before I ran out of time. I actually caught a mistake on one and couldn't believe I got tricked, I almost never change answers with my final review.

 

This was really a difficult test. I can not see how so many of you found it easy. 

 

What I have found from experience is that tests I have found difficult, I normally always have scored much higher than the people who said they were easy, and many times scored the highest grade in the class on those exams.

 

Your first thought is going to be, I'm probably just stupid and that would be totally OK. Please let me tell you my qualifications.

 

English first language

University degree in accounting with a 3.9 GPA in major.

Masters degree in taxation with a high GPA around 3.7, I actually forgot what it is.

 

I am a CPA, (certified public accountant), so yes I passed that very difficult exam, ask anyone who has taken it, harder than the exam to become a lawyer. 

 

For other city tests I have taken, I only took the last two FDNY city tests, scored 100 on them and scored a very low list number, easily got called for both of them. The 1st FDNY test I took I found that to be extremely easy, the 2nd most recent one was much harder. 

 

I consider myself a very good test taker, very careful and have scored the highest grade on many exams in my classes at the university.

 

I am an extremely careful test taker, I have lots of work experience in taxes where being careful is a priority.  

 

That being said I am sure I scored close to 100% on this test, but to say it was easy is totally an understatement. 

 

Please, is there anyone here who will admit that the test was also quite challenging? I honestly feel so stupid right now that I am the only one who found it challanging. 

 

Look, if it makes you feel better, I also found the test surprisingly challenging.  And not to brag--I only mention this because of what you said--but I have more impressive degrees and credentials than you do.  I took the test because my profession is notoriously stressful, cutthroat, and soul-crushing, and frankly I'm starting to get burnt out.  Also like you, I find office environments (and office politics) particularly dismal and draining. 

 

About a quarter of the way through the test I realized that it was written to appear easy.  But if you were really paying attention and started noticing the patterns, it was deceptively tricky.  There were traps and trick questions purposely written in to steer you to the wrong answers if you didn't read (and reread) the questions very carefully.  There were even some questions that had more than one right answer (yes, I believe there was more than just the one everyone is thinking of), which I can only assume were put in there to throw you off and to see how you'd react to such a situation.  If you spent too much time trying to figure out which answer was "more right" it could seriously cut into your time and you wouldn't have as much time to finish.  

 

There were also other questions that didn't seem to have any right answer at all.  Or there were questions that didn't make sense because the way the information was presented in the example tables and diagrams seemed to have mistakes.  But they were written to seem like they made sense if you weren't paying close enough attention so that you would easily choose the wrong answer if you didn't notice the "mistakes".  It's hard describing these questions without getting more specific, but I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to discuss and refer to the actual questions.  

 

Meanwhile, these trick questions were interspersed between questions that were so simple that I thought to myself, "This question is way too easy; it has to be a trick!"  Easy as in, the first President of the United States was __________________.  (This is, of course, not one of the questions, but just a made up example.)  So I ended up going back and checking every single question to make sure that the ones that seemed too easy were in fact just easy questions.  And yes, I took all three hours given because of this.  

 

It also seemed like the test was written to throw off people who tend to overthink questions too much.  There were some questions that I spent way too much time trying to figure out if it was a trick question or not or if I was just missing some crucial piece of the puzzle.  Perhaps the exam was trying to weed out people who think a little too much outside the box?  Or people who assume that the information they were given was wrong if it didn't make sense and would make choices that weren't standard procedure because they thought they knew better?  

 

Either way, if we're ever allowed to discuss the actual questions, I'd really love to see what other people thought of specific ones.  

[MTAhopefullMatt]

Yes, @Candor, I have the same take on the exam. I also agree that we shouldn't be too specific about the questions. I think it was a deceptively challenging test with some sneaky answer choices. I'm just hoping I picked the right answers and can move ahead in this process within the next few years.

[Xentor]

My brother you have no idea and sound just as clueless as other new yorkers when it comes to the work we put in.... you might as well go back to the private sector.. Because working for transit there is no going home at 5pm everyday...You probably couldnt handle 10 people at your cab window asking for directions either.... so before you go making assumptions work a REGULAR job first since you havent had no work experience in the past 15 years..Transit employees work tirelessly and to no merit....never get a thank you either....

 

This ranks right up there with some of the realest posts I've seen on the forum.

[Xentor]

The Transit Authority could have ramped up the difficulty setting on some of the newer open competitive exams in an effort to try and rein in what they think will become better employees. Either that or they have hired so many people already that they wouldn't mind failing a few extra thousand people this time around. It's possible. I personally don't think making the exam any harder makes a difference. ANYONE can come to transit and be phenomenal day in and day out. Sometimes it doesn't even matter how well you do the job most of the time, as long as you don't screw it up (this isn't good advice, i'm just telling it as I see it). It's also something you get better at like it or not and without even realizing it as time goes by and you gain more experience. That's why the VAST majority of transit workers are phenomenal. People in Transit work hard most especially RTO personnel. Everyone has a responsibility assigned to them and it needs to be done, otherwise you're not coming back the next day, at least not in operational capacity.  This C/R thing is a pretty darn good job even if you don't plan on promoting, so good luck to you all, get this gig and be phenomenal even though no one notices it.

 

 

 

Look, if it makes you feel better, I also found the test surprisingly challenging.  And not to brag--I only mention this because of what you said--but I have more impressive degrees and credentials than you do.  I took the test because my profession is notoriously stressful, cutthroat, and soul-crushing, and frankly I'm starting to get burnt out.  Also like you, I find office environments (and office politics) particularly dismal and draining. 

 

About a quarter of the way through the test I realized that it was written to appear easy.  But if you were really paying attention and started noticing the patterns, it was deceptively tricky.  There were traps and trick questions purposely written in to steer you to the wrong answers if you didn't read (and reread) the questions very carefully.  There were even some questions that had more than one right answer (yes, I believe there was more than just the one everyone is thinking of), which I can only assume were put in there to throw you off and to see how you'd react to such a situation.  If you spent too much time trying to figure out which answer was "more right" it could seriously cut into your time and you wouldn't have as much time to finish.  

 

There were also other questions that didn't seem to have any right answer at all.  Or there were questions that didn't make sense because the way the information was presented in the example tables and diagrams seemed to have mistakes.  But they were written to seem like they made sense if you weren't paying close enough attention so that you would easily choose the wrong answer if you didn't notice the "mistakes".  It's hard describing these questions without getting more specific, but I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to discuss and refer to the actual questions.  

 

Meanwhile, these trick questions were interspersed between questions that were so simple that I thought to myself, "This question is way too easy; it has to be a trick!"  Easy as in, the first President of the United States was __________________.  (This is, of course, not one of the questions, but just a made up example.)  So I ended up going back and checking every single question to make sure that the ones that seemed too easy were in fact just easy questions.  And yes, I took all three hours given because of this.  

 

It also seemed like the test was written to throw off people who tend to overthink questions too much.  There were some questions that I spent way too much time trying to figure out if it was a trick question or not or if I was just missing some crucial piece of the puzzle.  Perhaps the exam was trying to weed out people who think a little too much outside the box?  Or people who assume that the information they were given was wrong if it didn't make sense and would make choices that weren't standard procedure because they thought they knew better?  

 

Either way, if we're ever allowed to discuss the actual questions, I'd really love to see what other people thought of specific ones.  

 

 

This post above does a good job outlining what a lot of people think of Transit exams including many but not all of my colleagues. I especially saw a lot of this on some of the promotional tests I've taken, they are a bit harder because most of the questions assume you know a thing or two about the job already, but nothing to rip you're hair out for. Most people think the exams are easy (and they are really) but most don't score a perfect 100%. Sometimes I think they'll even give you a hard question so that you take extra time time thinking about it and then you may have to rush a bit. They want and need quick thinkers here, don't think outside the box just do as you're told and taught lol.

[Dred]

Will be interesting to see what we all get on this exam. make sure you guys post your scores so we can get an idea how the scores fall. I am pretty sure I will get close to 100 on the exam.

 

To be honest, It probably doesn't matter all that much that it was harder because they only pick, for example, the top 1000 sores, so I would think the scores may just be distributed differently. Instead of a thousand people getting 98-100 a thousand people will get 90-100.

 

What I personally like about the harder test is it guarantees me to be picked first before others and also guarantees that like 2,000 people won't get 100 and I won't be picked because they only choose a thousand people with the 100.

 

What I also wonder about is if English was not your first language you would have no chance with this test. It was just too much reading comprehension and you had to be a very good reader. I always thought that the city was trying to get foreigners (not American born) on the payroll. Especially the Hispanic community. Maybe that was the purpose of the test to keep them out so that American born people would get the job. Or maybe they wanted to make sure conductors spoke good English.

[Kidbx175]

Dred I kind of disagree, don't we also have to take into consideration the army vets? I honestly think atleast 1500 people wil score 100 and That margin will just increase as the scores get lower. Just like how sanitation was. If you only had the resident bonus and scored 100(105) or if you scored one wrong , you had a pretty good list number anything after that you could forget about it. Especially if they decide tie breakers with the 5th digit of your social and you have a high number. You can forget about it. Yes the exam was pretty hard because it required your full attention to detail, but the amount of test dates plus the morning evening exams for each test date can give you an idea to how many people actually took this exam. Not to mention they are still calling from the previous conductor exam.

[MTAhopefullMatt]

@KidBx175, I agree.

Probably more like sanitation than most prior Transit exams because so many people took this one.

 

Don't forget there's also a pending promotional conductors list - they will call everyone who passed that exam before they call from this list.

 

Re English skills, they reserved the right to do an oral proficiency follow up test to check for that.

 

No reason to play around with the scoring, they may just only call people from 105 (perfect score plus veterans credit) to say 98.

[BriTish]

Consider this: I took the track worker's test a couple of years ago. That test was much easier than this conductor exam by far. Close to 15,000 people took that exam and exactly 775 people, including I, scored 100 points or better. They started picking people off the list in January 2015 and thus far have hired up to list number 661. Considering that this test was much harder, I expect maybe half that number of perfect scores. My list number was 31*, but I wasn't hired because of my past work record with the MtA. Supposedly, they can only deny me 3 times before they have to hire me. Long story, but I'll keep taking transit exams until they actually do hire me.

[Dred]

Dred I kind of disagree, don't we also have to take into consideration the army vets? I honestly think atleast 1500 people wil score 100 and That margin will just increase as the scores get lower. Just like how sanitation was. If you only had the resident bonus and scored 100(105) or if you scored one wrong , you had a pretty good list number anything after that you could forget about it. Especially if they decide tie breakers with the 5th digit of your social and you have a high number. You can forget about it. Yes the exam was pretty hard because it required your full attention to detail, but the amount of test dates plus the morning evening exams for each test date can give you an idea to how many people actually took this exam. Not to mention they are still calling from the previous conductor exam.

There is no way this test is going to have a high amount of people scoring a perfect score. That is how tests were in the past, but the conductor 6601 test was not like this at all. 

 

I took two FDNY tests, the older one was so ridiculously easy everyone got 100, but the 2nd one was much harder and not everyone got a perfect. 

 

They probably want to change the system here so not everyone scores 100. 

 

That is a good point about the army vets. Maybe that is another reason they made this a lot harder so that just because you're an army vet doesn't guarantee you the job.

[Dred]

 

Look, if it makes you feel better, I also found the test surprisingly challenging.  And not to brag--I only mention this because of what you said--but I have more impressive degrees and credentials than you do.  I took the test because my profession is notoriously stressful, cutthroat, and soul-crushing, and frankly I'm starting to get burnt out.  Also like you, I find office environments (and office politics) particularly dismal and draining. 

 

About a quarter of the way through the test I realized that it was written to appear easy.  But if you were really paying attention and started noticing the patterns, it was deceptively tricky.  There were traps and trick questions purposely written in to steer you to the wrong answers if you didn't read (and reread) the questions very carefully.  There were even some questions that had more than one right answer (yes, I believe there was more than just the one everyone is thinking of), which I can only assume were put in there to throw you off and to see how you'd react to such a situation.  If you spent too much time trying to figure out which answer was "more right" it could seriously cut into your time and you wouldn't have as much time to finish.  

 

There were also other questions that didn't seem to have any right answer at all.  Or there were questions that didn't make sense because the way the information was presented in the example tables and diagrams seemed to have mistakes.  But they were written to seem like they made sense if you weren't paying close enough attention so that you would easily choose the wrong answer if you didn't notice the "mistakes".  It's hard describing these questions without getting more specific, but I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to discuss and refer to the actual questions.  

 

Meanwhile, these trick questions were interspersed between questions that were so simple that I thought to myself, "This question is way too easy; it has to be a trick!"  Easy as in, the first President of the United States was __________________.  (This is, of course, not one of the questions, but just a made up example.)  So I ended up going back and checking every single question to make sure that the ones that seemed too easy were in fact just easy questions.  And yes, I took all three hours given because of this.  

 

It also seemed like the test was written to throw off people who tend to overthink questions too much.  There were some questions that I spent way too much time trying to figure out if it was a trick question or not or if I was just missing some crucial piece of the puzzle.  Perhaps the exam was trying to weed out people who think a little too much outside the box?  Or people who assume that the information they were given was wrong if it didn't make sense and would make choices that weren't standard procedure because they thought they knew better?  

 

Either way, if we're ever allowed to discuss the actual questions, I'd really love to see what other people thought of specific ones.  

 

Thanks for your feedback about the test.

 

I agree 100% that it was made to appear easy. I think many people are going to be a bit surprised about their score on this test. I may even be a bit surprised by scoring lower than I expected.

 

I think only 1 question had 2 potential answers. I didn't find any other questions where I was not able to find the correct answer and also eliminate all the other answers. 

 

When the scores come out please come back and let me know how you scored on the exam.