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Conductor, Exam No. 6601

List Status: This list has been established as of 2/14/2018.

Pay: Starts at $24.33 and increases to $34.75 in the sixth year of service

Training: Monday thru Friday, across three 8-hour tours (AMs, PMs, overnights), unless otherwise specified.

Highest List Number Called: For initial Pre-Employment: (4800's) - For Medical: (Last Known - 3470's)

Next Training Class: Unknown

Resources:

(Updated January 16, 2022)

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1 hour ago, Dred said:

I would like to have some of your opinions  from people who took the OPA exam. We really need to have a serious discussion about our chances of passing this OPA exam.

Please also note that I am not trying to brag about my accomplishments, just trying to give you an understanding of where my background is help put into perspective how difficult I found this memory section to be.

I'm a native english speaker and also have an accounting degree and also a master degree, I have my CPA license, or certified public accountant certification which is a extremely difficult 4 part exam, and got 2 answers wrong on the first part of the conductor exam.  I don't consider myself to have bad memory either,   but I found the first memory part extremely difficult because they would give you so much information to remember and they would give you stuff to remember to try and trick you up.

To clarify better as an example, they would give you lots of facts and the facts were very close to each other that when it came time to answer the question you could usually narrow it down to 2 answers very easily but those two answers were so close you really had to take a guess. 

I found myself having to take an educated guess many times after narrowing it down to two questions.

To give an example of a hypothetical memory question that is made to try and trick you up, say I placed a book on the 7th row of a shelf, and this shelf in the 6th aisle of the 8th floor. There would be lots of other information in this question also you had to remember, not just these facts so there is no way you could continue thinking about these numbers in your short term memory.


Then you were asked a question a few minutes later asking "What row of the shelf did you place the book on the shelf". A) 8th B) 7th C)2nd D) 3rd shelf.

Now you kind probably easily remember that the book was placed high up on the shelf, so you can eliminate the 2nd and 3rd shelf easily.  However, you then narrow it down to two answers, was this the 7th or the 8th shelf. You remember hearing the word 8th, but you really can't remember was it the 7th shelf or the 8th shelf, or was it that the 7th aisle :wacko:. You then have no choice but to take a guess because who the heck is going to remember exactly the location when so many other numbers were so close to trick you up and you had so many other facts and numbers to remember.

This is exactly why this test was so difficult, they really tricked you up and forced you to remember things that were extremely close.

That all being said I had to guess at many questions and am seriously worried that I failed this test, especially if they grade it with a 75 average.

What I would like to discuss from some of you is, do you think they are going to fail a lot of people? Personally I would be shocked if they graded this on a 75 Pass average as I would think so many people would fail including myself. 

Is it possible that they may not fail a lot of people and the only people who will fail will be non-english speakers who really couldn't remember anything well because of the language barrier and couldn't even narrow down the answers to 2 questions? This is what I'm hoping for. I found the first part of the exam was so language intensive that it seemed it was meant to weed out the non native speakers of English. 

I simply can not believe my memory can be so bad with all my accomplishments, unless of course being in your late 30's makes your memory crap compared to early 20's.

This makes me believe that they will have to score this on some kind of curve and not outright fail more than 50% of the candidates. Could you imagine if most of us failed here? Wouldn't there be lawsuits like with the FDNY for discrimination? We really should consider a lawsuit if most of us fail this OPA exam as I think it is outrageous what they expected you to remember.

 

The other topic I would like to discuss is how some people have posted on this thread that the OPA memory exam was easy. Personally, I usually have found at the university that the people who said an exam was easy did poorly on it. The reason for this is because they did not even realize they were getting tricked up big time. I just can't see how anyone could have that good of a memory unless they practiced memory tricks to learn how to remember things.  I would like to hear from some of you how people have said in this thread that the memory test was easy. Are these people just fooling themselves or is my memory just bad and I have to accept that fact?

 

Please, I don't want any fighting about what I wrote here, it always seems like anything I write leads to flaming. I really want a serious discussion about the difficulty of this OPA exam as I found it ridiculously difficult. Based on my test scores, my academic qualifications, having been able to pass the CPA exam which is considered very difficult exam, how I could find this OPA exam so difficult and am pretty sure I failed it. I also don't consider myself to have bad memory considering I always seem to remember things better than most people I know.

Please share your experience with this memory test, did anyone else find it extremely difficult and are also worried they could have failed? 

When i took the OPA in Oct. I was not worried about the memory part. It was hard but not to crazy. I worry about how i did on the second part. The answers needed to be so exact that i couldn't concentrate. 

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6 hours ago, Dred said:

I would like to have some of your opinions  from people who took the OPA exam. We really need to have a serious discussion about our chances of passing this OPA exam.

Please also note that I am not trying to brag about my accomplishments, just trying to give you an understanding of where my background is help put into perspective how difficult I found this memory section to be.

I'm a native english speaker and also have an accounting degree and also a master degree, I have my CPA license, or certified public accountant certification which is a extremely difficult 4 part exam, and got 2 answers wrong on the first part of the conductor exam.  I don't consider myself to have bad memory either,   but I found the first memory part extremely difficult because they would give you so much information to remember and they would give you stuff to remember to try and trick you up.

To clarify better as an example, they would give you lots of facts and the facts were very close to each other that when it came time to answer the question you could usually narrow it down to 2 answers very easily but those two answers were so close you really had to take a guess. 

I found myself having to take an educated guess many times after narrowing it down to two questions.

To give an example of a hypothetical memory question that is made to try and trick you up, say I placed a book on the 7th row of a shelf, and this shelf in the 6th aisle of the 8th floor. There would be lots of other information in this question also you had to remember, not just these facts so there is no way you could continue thinking about these numbers in your short term memory.


Then you were asked a question a few minutes later asking "What row of the shelf did you place the book on the shelf". A) 8th B) 7th C)2nd D) 3rd shelf.

Now you kind probably easily remember that the book was placed high up on the shelf, so you can eliminate the 2nd and 3rd shelf easily.  However, you then narrow it down to two answers, was this the 7th or the 8th shelf. You remember hearing the word 8th, but you really can't remember was it the 7th shelf or the 8th shelf, or was it that the 7th aisle :wacko:. You then have no choice but to take a guess because who the heck is going to remember exactly the location when so many other numbers were so close to trick you up and you had so many other facts and numbers to remember.

This is exactly why this test was so difficult, they really tricked you up and forced you to remember things that were extremely close.

That all being said I had to guess at many questions and am seriously worried that I failed this test, especially if they grade it with a 75 average.

What I would like to discuss from some of you is, do you think they are going to fail a lot of people? Personally I would be shocked if they graded this on a 75 Pass average as I would think so many people would fail including myself. 

Is it possible that they may not fail a lot of people and the only people who will fail will be non-english speakers who really couldn't remember anything well because of the language barrier and couldn't even narrow down the answers to 2 questions? This is what I'm hoping for. I found the first part of the exam was so language intensive that it seemed it was meant to weed out the non native speakers of English. 

I simply can not believe my memory can be so bad with all my accomplishments, unless of course being in your late 30's makes your memory crap compared to early 20's.

This makes me believe that they will have to score this on some kind of curve and not outright fail more than 50% of the candidates. Could you imagine if most of us failed here? Wouldn't there be lawsuits like with the FDNY for discrimination? We really should consider a lawsuit if most of us fail this OPA exam as I think it is outrageous what they expected you to remember.

 

The other topic I would like to discuss is how some people have posted on this thread that the OPA memory exam was easy. Personally, I usually have found at the university that the people who said an exam was easy did poorly on it. The reason for this is because they did not even realize they were getting tricked up big time. I just can't see how anyone could have that good of a memory unless they practiced memory tricks to learn how to remember things.  I would like to hear from some of you how people have said in this thread that the memory test was easy. Are these people just fooling themselves or is my memory just bad and I have to accept that fact?

 

Please, I don't want any fighting about what I wrote here, it always seems like anything I write leads to flaming. I really want a serious discussion about the difficulty of this OPA exam as I found it ridiculously difficult. Based on my test scores, my academic qualifications, having been able to pass the CPA exam which is considered very difficult exam, how I could find this OPA exam so difficult and am pretty sure I failed it. I also don't consider myself to have bad memory considering I always seem to remember things better than most people I know.

Please share your experience with this memory test, did anyone else find it extremely difficult and are also worried they could have failed? 

The thing about the OPA is it seems to be subjective (based on how you look at it)I personally feel like I didn't do to great.If I had to give any advice on my own I would say keep the answers short sweet and to the point

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7 hours ago, Dred said:

I would like to have some of your opinions  from people who took the OPA exam. We really need to have a serious discussion about our chances of passing this OPA exam.

Please also note that I am not trying to brag about my accomplishments, just trying to give you an understanding of where my background is help put into perspective how difficult I found this memory section to be.

I'm a native english speaker and also have an accounting degree and also a master degree, I have my CPA license, or certified public accountant certification which is a extremely difficult 4 part exam, and got 2 answers wrong on the first part of the conductor exam.  I don't consider myself to have bad memory either,   but I found the first memory part extremely difficult because they would give you so much information to remember and they would give you stuff to remember to try and trick you up.

To clarify better as an example, they would give you lots of facts and the facts were very close to each other that when it came time to answer the question you could usually narrow it down to 2 answers very easily but those two answers were so close you really had to take a guess. 

I found myself having to take an educated guess many times after narrowing it down to two questions.

To give an example of a hypothetical memory question that is made to try and trick you up, say I placed a book on the 7th row of a shelf, and this shelf in the 6th aisle of the 8th floor. There would be lots of other information in this question also you had to remember, not just these facts so there is no way you could continue thinking about these numbers in your short term memory.


Then you were asked a question a few minutes later asking "What row of the shelf did you place the book on the shelf". A) 8th B) 7th C)2nd D) 3rd shelf.

Now you kind probably easily remember that the book was placed high up on the shelf, so you can eliminate the 2nd and 3rd shelf easily.  However, you then narrow it down to two answers, was this the 7th or the 8th shelf. You remember hearing the word 8th, but you really can't remember was it the 7th shelf or the 8th shelf, or was it that the 7th aisle :wacko:. You then have no choice but to take a guess because who the heck is going to remember exactly the location when so many other numbers were so close to trick you up and you had so many other facts and numbers to remember.

This is exactly why this test was so difficult, they really tricked you up and forced you to remember things that were extremely close.

That all being said I had to guess at many questions and am seriously worried that I failed this test, especially if they grade it with a 75 average.

What I would like to discuss from some of you is, do you think they are going to fail a lot of people? Personally I would be shocked if they graded this on a 75 Pass average as I would think so many people would fail including myself. 

Is it possible that they may not fail a lot of people and the only people who will fail will be non-english speakers who really couldn't remember anything well because of the language barrier and couldn't even narrow down the answers to 2 questions? This is what I'm hoping for. I found the first part of the exam was so language intensive that it seemed it was meant to weed out the non native speakers of English. 

I simply can not believe my memory can be so bad with all my accomplishments, unless of course being in your late 30's makes your memory crap compared to early 20's.

This makes me believe that they will have to score this on some kind of curve and not outright fail more than 50% of the candidates. Could you imagine if most of us failed here? Wouldn't there be lawsuits like with the FDNY for discrimination? We really should consider a lawsuit if most of us fail this OPA exam as I think it is outrageous what they expected you to remember.

 

The other topic I would like to discuss is how some people have posted on this thread that the OPA memory exam was easy. Personally, I usually have found at the university that the people who said an exam was easy did poorly on it. The reason for this is because they did not even realize they were getting tricked up big time. I just can't see how anyone could have that good of a memory unless they practiced memory tricks to learn how to remember things.  I would like to hear from some of you how people have said in this thread that the memory test was easy. Are these people just fooling themselves or is my memory just bad and I have to accept that fact?

 

Please, I don't want any fighting about what I wrote here, it always seems like anything I write leads to flaming. I really want a serious discussion about the difficulty of this OPA exam as I found it ridiculously difficult. Based on my test scores, my academic qualifications, having been able to pass the CPA exam which is considered very difficult exam, how I could find this OPA exam so difficult and am pretty sure I failed it. I also don't consider myself to have bad memory considering I always seem to remember things better than most people I know.

Please share your experience with this memory test, did anyone else find it extremely difficult and are also worried they could have failed? 

I completely agree with you. I consistently score high on city exams, but memory is not my forte. In addition, I think it was unfair. They completely made up stations and lines. If they used real ones, I would've had no problem as I'm pretty familiar with the subway. Also, if I was working a line, I would know my line. Asking me to remember all this new information was a lot imo. But I accepted that all the people who thought they did well probably just have a better memory than me. As far as the memory part goes, I feel I got 60% correct. For the second part, I'm not entirely sure what they were looking for. Was it enunciation? How quickly we answered?

Edit: I'm realizing now that if they used real lines, it would've been more unfair. The people who use those real lines every day would've had an unfair advantage :/

Edited by adorkasherri
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I didn't find the first part hard at all nor did i find it to be unfair either. Not even trying to brag, but it was actually easier than i expected. I went in the mindset of "if it sounds important it probably is". Remember, just like the actual written exam we took in 2016 it's all about the attention to detail. I also don't see what personal achievements have to do with anything either. While I'm currently close to getting my Associates degree i scored 79/80 on the written exam there's probably a number of people who scored 80/80 on just a high school diploma alone. Plenty of employees on this site mentioned that just because you went to college doesn't mean you'll make it through schoolcar. No offense just my honest opinion but it seems like some of you are just making excuses as to why you didn't do as well as you wished you did. I mean a lawsuit, really?

@LIRRMedford i feel the same way as you in regards to part two. I'm not overly confident, but i do remember when i gave one of my answers in a scenario the woman "interviewing" us nodded her head in agreement like i was corrsct, and I answered the questions in the same format throughout. Just hang in there and have faith, I'm sure we did fine.

Switching subjects, 8094 should finally expire one week from today. The exams unit says notice of results are tentatively scheduled to go out in spring. 

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14 hours ago, Jchambers2120 said:

I didn't find the first part hard at all nor did i find it to be unfair either. Not even trying to brag, but it was actually easier than i expected. I went in the mindset of "if it sounds important it probably is". Remember, just like the actual written exam we took in 2016 it's all about the attention to detail. I also don't see what personal achievements have to do with anything either. While I'm currently close to getting my Associates degree i scored 79/80 on the written exam there's probably a number of people who scored 80/80 on just a high school diploma alone. Plenty of employees on this site mentioned that just because you went to college doesn't mean you'll make it through schoolcar. No offense just my honest opinion but it seems like some of you are just making excuses as to why you didn't do as well as you wished you did. I mean a lawsuit, really?

@LIRRMedford i feel the same way as you in regards to part two. I'm not overly confident, but i do remember when i gave one of my answers in a scenario the woman "interviewing" us nodded her head in agreement like i was corrsct, and I answered the questions in the same format throughout. Just hang in there and have faith, I'm sure we did fine.

Switching subjects, 8094 should finally expire one week from today. The exams unit says notice of results are tentatively scheduled to go out in spring. 

The only reason I mentioned accomplishments is that a strong memory is probably required to achieve those accomplishments. You have to have a good memory and studies show a good memory is linked to academic achievements. 

You found the memory test easy, and you also scored a 79/80 on I assume part 1 of the MTA test that is better than I have on part 1 as I got 2 or 3 wrong. You obviously are very intelligent to score that high. You would probably be able to even get my accomplishments and have an easier time doing it. The only reason you didn't get an 80/80 was probably because of the single question that had two answers. You may be worlds ahead of me in intelligence and a far exception to most people taking this test. 

At least you said it was easy and you can back it up with scoring an almost perfect score on part 1 of the exam. Why you would waste your time with an MTA conductor job if you found the memory test easy and scored so well on the first part is beyond me. 

However, you are in the top 1% of the people who took the MTA exam, I maybe in the top 2%. I personally found part 1 of the exam difficult because I like to think my memory was good enough to clearly remember that two answers were extremely close and they were extremely close to really trick up your memory.

Saying tricky is probably not the right word, it was definitely fair like you say, the answer was definitely there. The reason I say tricky is because they gave you very close answers and unless you remembered the exact numbers you can easily forget was it a 76 or what that a 74.. You know it wasn't a 12 or a 30. Considering you have no visual association with these numbers, like if you knew 76 was the street of madison squre garden or a certain train stop, you are just remembering arbitrary numbers which make it extremely difficult to remember. 

Since they give you so much information to memorize and you had to memorize it because you have no idea what the questions would be, you can't clearly keep all this in your short term memory unless you learned memory tricks, like turning numbers into pictures. This is some advanced stuff.

You have to also understand where I am coming from, yes there were some easy questions, but we need to score a 75 to pass this OPA exam. I had to guess at way too answers, usually narrowing them down to two answers, but if I get unlucky and guessed all these wrong I can clearly fail. This I find ridiculous considering I am more than capable of doing this job.

I also believe it may come down to a bit of luck on who passes and who doesn't. Most of us who scored well on the first part will probably narrow down the answers to many of the same questions. This means that some of us will get lucky and some not when guessing between the two answers, which is totally unfair if you ask me.

Yes I believe there should be lawsuits. This memory test discriminates against older people I am sure and if we look at the test scores I best older people do worse on it. Just like the FDNY test in 2008 was thrown out and FDNY got sued this test can also be. I believe this needs to be looked into if this was discriminatory and we need to find out how it was discriminatory so we can sue the MTA and hopefully have them throw out this part of the test. Maybe we even say that it discriminates against minorities like Hispanics as they are not non-native speakers.

The best we can hope for is that most people pass this OPA exam unless they are clearly lacking language skills, which I believe will probably be the case. Like they have a handicap that prevents them from speaking properly or they have learned English as a second language and their English skills are terrible. I can imagine if I had to take this test in Spanish or German, two languages that I learned which I am not very good at. The language barrier would make this test so much more difficult. The goal of the OPA exam should make sure we can speak English well enough and understand the spoken English word well enough to be able to speak clearly with MTA customers using the trains.

You can probably understand why they have to give this test because they want strong speakers of English operating on the trains, and not a bunch of people who learned English as a second language that are difficult to communicate with. 

But if the average person taking this test like myself are failing the test at high numbers, then something is seriously wrong with it and something must be done to hold MTA accountable. Hopefully, like mentioned above most of us will pass if we are native speakers of English. I just know that if I fail this that many others will also, this could lead to lawsuits and throwing out this OPA exam completely based on it being discriminatory. 

 

Edited by Dred
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The radio transmissions down here are all short, quick and use radio codes.  Sometimes when the situation is serious, the dispatcher or tss will not have the time to repeat their message.

Sometimes control will issue radio silence going into certain stations, so they MUST go with their messages outside of the restricted area.

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3 hours ago, Dred said:

The only reason I mentioned accomplishments is that a strong memory is probably required to achieve those accomplishments. You have to have a good memory and studies show a good memory is linked to academic achievements. 

You found the memory test easy, and you also scored a 79/80 on I assume part 1 of the MTA test that is better than I have on part 1 as I got 2 or 3 wrong. You obviously are very intelligent to score that high. You would probably be able to even get my accomplishments and have an easier time doing it. The only reason you didn't get an 80/80 was probably because of the single question that had two answers. You may be worlds ahead of me in intelligence and a far exception to most people taking this test. 

At least you said it was easy and you can back it up with scoring an almost perfect score on part 1 of the exam. Why you would waste your time with an MTA conductor job if you found the memory test easy and scored so well on the first part is beyond me. 

However, you are in the top 1% of the people who took the MTA exam, I maybe in the top 2%. I personally found part 1 of the exam difficult because I like to think my memory was good enough to clearly remember that two answers were extremely close and they were extremely close to really trick up your memory.

Saying tricky is probably not the right word, it was definitely fair like you say, the answer was definitely there. The reason I say tricky is because they gave you very close answers and unless you remembered the exact numbers you can easily forget was it a 76 or what that a 74.. You know it wasn't a 12 or a 30. Considering you have no visual association with these numbers, like if you knew 76 was the street of madison squre garden or a certain train stop, you are just remembering arbitrary numbers which make it extremely difficult to remember. 

Since they give you so much information to memorize and you had to memorize it because you have no idea what the questions would be, you can't clearly keep all this in your short term memory unless you learned memory tricks, like turning numbers into pictures. This is some advanced stuff.

You have to also understand where I am coming from, yes there were some easy questions, but we need to score a 75 to pass this OPA exam. I had to guess at way too answers, usually narrowing them down to two answers, but if I get unlucky and guessed all these wrong I can clearly fail. This I find ridiculous considering I am more than capable of doing this job.

I also believe it may come down to a bit of luck on who passes and who doesn't. Most of us who scored well on the first part will probably narrow down the answers to many of the same questions. This means that some of us will get lucky and some not when guessing between the two answers, which is totally unfair if you ask me.

Yes I believe there should be lawsuits. This memory test discriminates against older people I am sure and if we look at the test scores I best older people do worse on it. Just like the FDNY test in 2008 was thrown out and FDNY got sued this test can also be. I believe this needs to be looked into if this was discriminatory and we need to find out how it was discriminatory so we can sue the MTA and hopefully have them throw out this part of the test. Maybe we even say that it discriminates against minorities like Hispanics as they are not non-native speakers.

The best we can hope for is that most people pass this OPA exam unless they are clearly lacking language skills, which I believe will probably be the case. Like they have a handicap that prevents them from speaking properly or they have learned English as a second language and their English skills are terrible. I can imagine if I had to take this test in Spanish or German, two languages that I learned which I am not very good at. The language barrier would make this test so much more difficult. The goal of the OPA exam should make sure we can speak English well enough and understand the spoken English word well enough to be able to speak clearly with MTA customers using the trains.

You can probably understand why they have to give this test because they want strong speakers of English operating on the trains, and not a bunch of people who learned English as a second language that are difficult to communicate with. 

But if the average person taking this test like myself are failing the test at high numbers, then something is seriously wrong with it and something must be done to hold MTA accountable. Hopefully, like mentioned above most of us will pass if we are native speakers of English. I just know that if I fail this that many others will also, this could lead to lawsuits and throwing out this OPA exam completely based on it being discriminatory. 

 

You said you are a CPA but you’re questioning this guy on why he would want to be a conductor if he’s so smart he didn’t fail a basic memory exam?

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On 2/9/2018 at 2:17 PM, Dred said:

I would like to have some of your opinions  from people who took the OPA exam. We really need to have a serious discussion about our chances of passing this OPA exam.

Please also note that I am not trying to brag about my accomplishments, just trying to give you an understanding of where my background is help put into perspective how difficult I found this memory section to be.

I'm a native english speaker and also have an accounting degree and also a master degree, I have my CPA license, or certified public accountant certification which is a extremely difficult 4 part exam, and got 2 answers wrong on the first part of the conductor exam.  I don't consider myself to have bad memory either,   but I found the first memory part extremely difficult because they would give you so much information to remember and they would give you stuff to remember to try and trick you up.

To clarify better as an example, they would give you lots of facts and the facts were very close to each other that when it came time to answer the question you could usually narrow it down to 2 answers very easily but those two answers were so close you really had to take a guess. 

I found myself having to take an educated guess many times after narrowing it down to two questions.

To give an example of a hypothetical memory question that is made to try and trick you up, say I placed a book on the 7th row of a shelf, and this shelf in the 6th aisle of the 8th floor. There would be lots of other information in this question also you had to remember, not just these facts so there is no way you could continue thinking about these numbers in your short term memory.


Then you were asked a question a few minutes later asking "What row of the shelf did you place the book on the shelf". A) 8th B) 7th C)2nd D) 3rd shelf.

Now you kind probably easily remember that the book was placed high up on the shelf, so you can eliminate the 2nd and 3rd shelf easily.  However, you then narrow it down to two answers, was this the 7th or the 8th shelf. You remember hearing the word 8th, but you really can't remember was it the 7th shelf or the 8th shelf, or was it that the 7th aisle :wacko:. You then have no choice but to take a guess because who the heck is going to remember exactly the location when so many other numbers were so close to trick you up and you had so many other facts and numbers to remember.

This is exactly why this test was so difficult, they really tricked you up and forced you to remember things that were extremely close.

That all being said I had to guess at many questions and am seriously worried that I failed this test, especially if they grade it with a 75 average.

What I would like to discuss from some of you is, do you think they are going to fail a lot of people? Personally I would be shocked if they graded this on a 75 Pass average as I would think so many people would fail including myself. 

Is it possible that they may not fail a lot of people and the only people who will fail will be non-english speakers who really couldn't remember anything well because of the language barrier and couldn't even narrow down the answers to 2 questions? This is what I'm hoping for. I found the first part of the exam was so language intensive that it seemed it was meant to weed out the non native speakers of English. 

I simply can not believe my memory can be so bad with all my accomplishments, unless of course being in your late 30's makes your memory crap compared to early 20's.

This makes me believe that they will have to score this on some kind of curve and not outright fail more than 50% of the candidates. Could you imagine if most of us failed here? Wouldn't there be lawsuits like with the FDNY for discrimination? We really should consider a lawsuit if most of us fail this OPA exam as I think it is outrageous what they expected you to remember.

 

The other topic I would like to discuss is how some people have posted on this thread that the OPA memory exam was easy. Personally, I usually have found at the university that the people who said an exam was easy did poorly on it. The reason for this is because they did not even realize they were getting tricked up big time. I just can't see how anyone could have that good of a memory unless they practiced memory tricks to learn how to remember things.  I would like to hear from some of you how people have said in this thread that the memory test was easy. Are these people just fooling themselves or is my memory just bad and I have to accept that fact?

 

Please, I don't want any fighting about what I wrote here, it always seems like anything I write leads to flaming. I really want a serious discussion about the difficulty of this OPA exam as I found it ridiculously difficult. Based on my test scores, my academic qualifications, having been able to pass the CPA exam which is considered very difficult exam, how I could find this OPA exam so difficult and am pretty sure I failed it. I also don't consider myself to have bad memory considering I always seem to remember things better than most people I know.

Please share your experience with this memory test, did anyone else find it extremely difficult and are also worried they could have failed? 

I didn't have a problem -- listen to everything and pull the important information by simply truncating things your head and repeating them. 

 

Play the game "Elevate" for a while. Makes it easier :D

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@Dred I did as good as you on the written exam, but also found the OPA very difficult (note: I am an English & Spanish speaker). But to scream lawsuit just because an agency wants people with the best speaking/understanding skills and great memory is kind of absurd. I am certain they don't care about your age, race, or gender. It would be like a bunch of people who only speak English suing a company because they prefer to hire bilingual people. 

I don't think if you are the right person for the job, you should want this job anyways. There are plenty of MTA/city jobs out there. I do hope you get a job with the city soon . Best of luck.

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6 minutes ago, Bmpo7 said:

@Dred I did as good as you on the written exam, but also found the OPA very difficult (note: I am an English & Spanish speaker). But to scream lawsuit just because an agency wants people with the best speaking/understanding skills and great memory is kind of absurd. I am certain they don't care about your age, race, or gender. It would be like a bunch of people who only speak English suing a company because they prefer to hire bilingual people. 

I don't think if you are the right person for the job, you should want this job anyways. There are plenty of MTA/city jobs out there. I do hope you get a job with the city soon . Best of luck.

You are right! In the past they hired people who you could barely understand. Now they want people who could be understood.  Im pretty sure it has been from customer surveys.

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@123melvin, OPA sounds a bit like the BOSS test for prospective bus drivers.

There were likely a lot of attitude problems among bus drivers that were noticed/documented over the years so they started implementing a further screening device to try to weed out people with bad attitudes.

Similarly, there were likely a lot of conductors who were perfectly capable of opening and closing the doors and fixing basic door problems but who had poor diction and couldn't remember new info provided over the radio (change of route due to accidents and track work, etc.).

This whole process is very stressful for applicants. Hopefully we'll get through it soon and make it to school car, where we can prove ourselves on the job.

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The second part was harder imo. First part i mightve f**ked myself up by skipping then going back. If not i should've scored well. Hopefully graded with a curve. 

 

Ima have a hard time picking nyc transit or the hotel job. I made $75k last year. This july i earn 85% which is $29.50 per hr. Overtime starts after 35 hrs. Free meals, free lodging at 5 star worldwide properties. In 2020 i earn $37 per hr. 7 yrs to wait for max pay with NYc tranist. I get free medical. Just union dues $23 per week. Next yr i should earn $85-90k and 2020-2021 i should be earning $110-120k.  Appealing thing for Transit is pension union hotels pension is only $1,200 per mo. Thats weak. Sick days and vacation all about equal. 

 

Hope all of u have back up plans i only took this test and sanitation. 

Edited by Nyctransitorhotels
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2 hours ago, Nyctransitorhotels said:

The second part was harder imo. First part i mightve f**ked myself up by skipping then going back. If not i should've scored well. Hopefully graded with a curve. 

 

Ima have a hard time picking nyc transit or the hotel job. I made $75k last year. This july i earn 85% which is $29.50 per hr. Overtime starts after 35 hrs. Free meals, free lodging at 5 star worldwide properties. In 2020 i earn $37 per hr. 7 yrs to wait for max pay with NYc tranist. I get free medical. Just union dues $23 per week. Next yr i should earn $85-90k and 2020-2021 i should be earning $110-120k.  Appealing thing for Transit is pension union hotels pension is only $1,200 per mo. Thats weak. Sick days and vacation all about equal. 

 

Hope all of u have back up plans i only took this test and sanitation. 

I agree. I felt like the first part was a breeze, i remembered everything clearly until i got to the last 3-4 questions,  but overall i think i did well on it. The second part I'm just worried about how they're grading us. Whether it's how we phrased our answers or is it just the clarity and if we had the "right" answer.

Anways, exam 8094 finally expires tomorrow! Hopefully it won't take them too long to provide us with some updated information on 6601 soon after.

As far as a backup plan i actually got called to start the process for the NYPD earlier this year, but i had to put that on hold because i want to finish up my degree & I'm waiting to see my stance with the MTA. Tbh i really want to be a Train operator, that's my dream job so I'm just hoping I aced my OPA. My goal was to start off as a conductor and then eventually take the next promo exam and move up front. If it unfortunately doesn't work out like i said i have my letter from the NYPD or i could always try Amtrak or some other avenue, but I'm really hoping i did well on this and honestly i feel like i did.

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I almost forgot I took this damn exam...time flies.  I'm fairly certain my current career path will overtake a path into MTA it seems. That's one less person you'll have to worry about.

Though just for kicks, if I do somewhat get hired and pass these classes for Conductor; is it true I can be promoted anywhere else as long as it's within MTA rights? Right now I'm still on my IT path, say I get conductor but want to move into more IT roles in the MTA, would it be easier as I would be previously employed by the MTA? If not, I guess I'll stay on my current path and just apply if something juicy opens up.

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On 2/9/2018 at 9:26 PM, Karim188 said:

Does 180 Livingston still hire Station Cleaners or is that something they would have to offer you if your waiting to be called on the list? 

There were a few people on the list off of MTA NYCT Conductor Exam #8094 that had been offered positions as Cleaners. However, they've been on that list for several years (>5 years) and were intending on becoming Conductors. Nowadays, the Cleaners you see are either demoted employees or were hired from the Public Assistance/Welfare Department of the City of New York. It seems that the MTA has stopped offering the open competitive exam for Cleaner all together.

Edited by AlgorithmOfTruth
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https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/Civil-Service-List-Active-/vx8i-nprf/data

 

CONDUCTOR 6601.

I don't see the list published on thechiefleader website. But  if you type in the search box with your last name you can see yourself on the list. I just checked for a friend of mine. FEB 14 was when it was released to the nyc data website.  You can also see other exams that you are on, but only if the list is published. 

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