TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR DEDUCTIVE REASONING

(APPLYING GENERAL RULES TO SPECIFIC SITUATIONS)

 

Deductive reasoning measures your ability to apply general rules or regulations to specific situations.  You will be presented with general Fire Department rules and regulations and then asked to apply them to specific situations.

 

Deductive Reasoning is the opposite of Inductive Reasoning.  Deductive reasoning starts with a general statement.  In Deductive Reasoning you go from the general statement to a particular fact or conclusion.

 

The Deductive Reasoning questions on the firefighter exam will not be such a rigid exercise in logic.  They will deal with situations more complex than the neat world of geometry.  But the Deductive Reasoning questions will follow the basic pattern of going from general statements to conclusions.  In the "fact pattern" or "stem" of the question, you will find the general statement.  It will be some kind of rule.  The answer choices will be specific actions.  One of them should be a valid example of how that rule would be applied in a concrete situation.  For instance, the question could state a general rule that fire trucks should not be positioned so close to a fire that they could be damaged by flying debris or heat from the fire.  The question might then give a description of a fire and tell you what direction the wind is blowing towards.  Then the question may ask you what side of the fire the truck should be farthest from.  In evaluating the individual answer choices, you should be asking yourself, "Is this an accurate example of the general statement?"

 

When answering questions like these, pay attention to any limits or exceptions to the rule.  The rule may be in effect only at certain times or under certain circumstances.  For instance, a rule might apply only when there are several fire trucks at a fire scene.  Or a rule might apply only at night, not in the daytime.  And watch out for exceptions.  A rule might apply to most firefighters but not to those assigned to certain duties, e.g., all firefighters might be required to wear a uniform, but fire marshals might be an exception.  A rule might apply all the time but still with exceptions, e.g., a rule might forbid using the fire truck to go out to purchase food for the meal in the firehouse but it might be allowed to stop for food on the way back to the firehouse from other duties.  So, you need to be asking yourself:

 

1.         Are there are limits to when the rule applies?

2.         Are there any limits to who is covered by the rule?

3.         Are there any authorized exceptions to the rule?

 

If there are limits or exceptions to rule, you may find them highlighted by certain words in the question.  The usual key words to denote exceptions to rules are:  except, unless, and if or when...  Circle or underline these key words when you are reading rules.

 

Apart from authorized exceptions stated in the question itself, do not make exceptions.  Your task is to apply the rule, not to question it or excuse anybody from following it.  In picking answer choices, apply rules rigidly.

 

As far as the firefighter exam is concerned, Deductive Reasoning is somewhat similar to Information Ordering.  But Information Ordering has more to do with following, in proper order, step by step procedures.  Deductive Reasoning is more the ability to recognize a correct concrete example of a general rule.

 

Additional Strategies:

1.         Pay attention to steps which may be taken in definite order.

2.         Pay attention to when the rule or procedure is enforced.

3.         Pay particular attention to any exceptions.

        TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR INDUCTIVE REASONING

(APPLYING PRIORITIZED RULES TO SPECIFIC SITUATIONS)

 

There are many different kinds of reasoning.  Some reasoning is by simple association.  If you see very dark clouds coming you way, accompanied by lightning and thunder, you will probably conclude that it is going to rain, even if you do not understand the scientific explanation for rain.  By experience you have learned to associate such dark clouds with rain.  By experience a fire marshal may associate a fire in the ceiling of a vacant top floor apartment of a tenement house with arson.  This kind of reasoning by association requires some knowledge or experience.

 

Another kind of reasoning is by comparison.  Much of the "legal reasoning" done by a lawyer consists of comparing a case with other cases which have already been decided by the courts.  When a firefighter is able to predict that a building will collapse during a fire, it is often by comparison to other fire scenes in which buildings have collapsed; it may not be possible to do a scientific evaluation of the situation at the moment.

 

Your firefighter exam will include three kinds of mental abilities related to reasoning.  These are three kinds of reasoning which do not depend heavily on prior knowledge or experience.  They are:  inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, and problem solving.

 

Inductive Reasoning measures your ability to determine a rule or concept which fits specific situations.  You will be given specific situations and then asked to determine the general concept which links or explains the situations.

 

Inductive reasoning is reasoning which goes from particular facts to a general conclusion.  It starts with a number of particular facts.  For example, a question may begin with some facts about fires and try to draw general conclusions.

 

For Inductive Reasoning questions, the answer choices are the general statements.  You must test them one by one against the particular facts provided in the question.  The facts may be statements.  Or the facts may be data from a table.  If you need to do some counting, you should write tallies or little notes.  If you fail to take notes, you may end up with a few possible answers and not remember all the details; then you will have to start counting again!  It will save you time in the long run to take notes the first time you evaluate an answer choice.

 

A problem with inductive reasoning is knowing how many particular facts are needed to support a general statement.  It would not be inductive reasoning to jump from a single particular fact to a general statement.  At least a few particular facts are necessary before a general statement can be made.  For instance, in reality no one would make a statement about when certain kinds of alarms occur on the basis of data from only one night's alarms.  However, there are practical limits to how much data can be put into a test question.  You should pick the answer which is supported best by the limited data in the question itself.

 

Inductive Reasoning questions can take a lot of time.  If you have several questions on the same set of data, it may be worthwhile to work out the answers immediately.  But if there are a lot of data and there is only one question based on the data, you may want to skip this kind of question and come back to it at the end.  Do not get bogged down when there are still lots of other questions to answer.

 

TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR INFORMATION ORDERING

(FINDING A RULE OR CONCEPT WHICH FITS OR DESCRIBES A SITUATION OR OTHER RELATED AREA)

 

Questions based on Information Ordering measure your ability to apply rules to a situation for the purpose of putting the information in the best or most appropriate sequence. 

 

The secret of success in answering questions based on Information Ordering is to be extremely rigid in your thinking.  These questions are based on the premises that:

 

1.         There is only one correct order of things or sequence of steps.

2.         Every step must be followed in its proper order.

3.         No step may be skipped or omitted.

 

Strategies:

 

1.         Put in order only as much information as you need to answer the questions.

2.            Examine alternatives only as far as the point where you find it to be definitely wrong.

3.         If you are not sure which item should be placed first in the list, determine which item is last.

4.         Go by what you do know for sure.

 

One example would be the rules for entering a person's name on a report form.  The form may indicate that one should begin by entering the person's last name, then the person's first name, then middle initial.  Given these rules, it would be an error to start with the person's first name.  It would also be an error to write out the person's middle name, since the rule calls for only the middle initial.

 

Another example would be a procedure that tells you to inspect a building by checking the cellar first, then the floors above one by one beginning with the first floor, then the fire escape, and finally the sprinklers if there are any.  Given this statement of the procedure, it would be an error to do the easy thing by inspecting the cellar and then using the cellar exit to the back yard to inspect the fire escape before going up to check the first floor.  It would also be an error to inspect the sprinklers at the same time as you are inspecting each floor.  Although a procedure may seem silly to you, there may be technical reasons which justify the procedure.  Stick to the procedure given in the question.

 

Standard procedures are used to ensure that nothing is overlooked due to lack of systematic approach.  On a fire scene standard procedures also help a superior to keep track of where Firefighters are at any given moment.  At least on an exam, it is an error to modify a procedure.  Sometimes a test maker will create a false choice which would be a change in the procedure but seems to make a lot of sense.  Do not fall for this kind of false answer!  Strictly adhere to procedures. 

 

Questions on procedures can be difficult when the procedures list exceptions or include "if's."  For example, a procedure may require firefighters to turn off all hydrants when they are not being used by the fire department, except when certain hydrants have been equipped with spray attachments and are being used by children playing on the street in the summertime.  Another example might be a procedure that says a firefighter should break a window if smoke is building up inside a building; if there is no build-up of smoke, this procedure would not call for breaking a window.  Hence, it is important to take note of any "if's" in procedures and to be aware of any exceptions to procedures which are stated on the exam itself.

 

When determining what order the information presented to you should be placed, try to look for key words in each choice that would lead to the next step in the process. The key for information ordering is that when put together, the answers present themselves in a paragraph form that correctly states each step.

TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR JUDGMENT, HUMAN RELATIONS

AND PROBLEM SOLVING

(RECOGNIZING AND IDENTIFYING THE EXISTENCE OF PROBLEMS)

 

Problem Solving measures your ability to recognize or identify the existence of problems.  You will not be tested on the ability to solve the problem, only the ability to identify or recognize it.

 

For the purposes of the firefighter exam, Problem Solving questions are somewhat similar to Deductive Reasoning questions.  The Deductive Reasoning questions start with a rule.  The Problem Sensitivity questions tend to start with a description of some general practice among firefighters.  Then the question asks you what might be the best reason for that common practice.  For example, a question might start by telling you that firefighters wear helmets made out of hard leather, not metal or plastics.  The answer choices might give various possible reasons for this, e.g., it is lighter, it is less costly, it is less likely to get hot or melt.  You must pick the answer which gives the best reason for the practice.

 

Problem Solving questions will be easier to answer if you keep in mind the main goals of firefighting.  You probably realize that most fire departments officially state that their purpose is to "protect life and property."  Sometimes "life" is more fully stated as "life and limb."  The idea behind protecting "life and limb" is to keep people from being killed and, furthermore, to keep them from being seriously injured.

 

Protecting life and limb is more important than protecting property, and so is stated first.  The purpose of a fire department is to protect "life and property."  In other words, the safety of people is more important than protecting property.

 

A fire department is also expected to operate efficiently.  Being efficient is important in any kind of work, but is less important than protecting life and property.  Hence, if we list the goals of a fire department in the order of their importance, the list would be:

 

1.         Safety

2.            Protecting property

3.            Efficiency

 

As the list of goals suggests, the best reason for anything is Safety.  If safety is a real issue in the "fact pattern" of the question, then safety is the best reason to justify any practice.

 

But sometimes there is no real issue of safety.  No one is seriously endangered at the moment.  In that case, the best reason for any practice is the fact that it is necessary in order to protect property.  However, "property" includes fire department property--firehouse, fire engine, tools, etc.  Property can be sacrificed when safety is at stake.  But if there is no real threat to safety, one must protect property.

 

If there is no real question of safety and no real threat to property in the situation, then the best reason for doing something is that it is efficient.  If several answer choices are based on efficiency, you will be judging which answer choice would really be more efficient.

 

Any answer which suggests that something should be done because it will bring praise or benefit to the firefighter is not likely to be a correct answer to a test question.  Financial benefits to other people are not usually good enough reasons either.  Likewise, an answer choice which tries to justify something only on the grounds that it will make the fire department "look good," is not likely to be a correct answer.  Being good will always be a better reason than looking good.  And financial benefits to anybody are not usually good enough reasons for fire department practices.

 

Remember that reasons must be realistic.  To justify a practice on the basis of safety, there must be something in the question situation to support the idea that safety is at stake.  Similarly, a proposed answer based on efficiency should really have the appearance of being possible and efficient.  Forest fires can be brought under control to some extent by dropping chemicals on them from planes, but it would not be practical to try chemical bombing of a burning house.

 

It is especially difficult to choose between some of the answer choices with these questions about the best reasons for doing things.  Problem Solving deals with more ambiguous problems than other kinds of questions.  But there is an old test taking strategy that may help you here.  You should remember that, in a sense, it is ultimately the Mayor or the Fire Chief who is testing you for the firefighter job.  When faced with difficult choices on a question of this type, imagine that the question is being asked personally by the Mayor or Fire Chief.  Choose the answer you would give to the Mayor or Chief in face to face questioning.

 

         TEST TAKING STRATEGY FOR MEMORIZATION

 

The S P A C E Technique

 

S          Select key information.  You probably do not have enough time to memorize every word or every squiggle on the page.  Memorize what seems to be important.  Memorization questions will focus on what would be important in a real job situation.  For instance, at a fire scene the number of firefighters on the scene, number of firefighter apparatus, number of hoselines going into a building, direction of wind, address and street location of the incident, location of the fire (what floor, what section of the building) are important.

P          Picture things and events and persons in your mind.  Close your eyes for a few seconds and form a mental picture of things, people or events which are being described.  The brain works more efficiently with pictures than with words.  If you are memorizing some kind of scene, imagine yourself taking a walk through it from one end to the other.

A            Arrange things and events in some order in your mind.  Information which is grouped in some way or in some order is easier to remember.  Count things, e.g., 5 firefighters, 3 engine companies, 2 ladder companies, 4 hoselines.  For picture material, draw two mental lines through the picture to divide it into quarters, then note what is in each quarter.  Notice what is next to what, what is above or below. 

C            Compare things.  For a picture or diagram, compare the contents of each quarter of the drawing.  If there are several items you may have to distinguish from one another (like rooms in a floor plan, or faces or diagrams of two different pieces of equipment) compare them to one another as you are memorizing.  Making comparisons helps you become more conscious of details.

E            Exercise your memory.  Go back to a section of a picture you already memorized.  Repeat items to yourself.  Repeat them.  Repeat.  Go back and repeat again.

 

Technique:        Test your memory continuously.  As you memorize more information, keep checking that you remember what you already worked on.  Keep testing yourself.  You can test yourself by asking over and over something like the 4 W's if it is a story:  Who?  What?  When?  Where?  If it is not a story, you may be asking yourself:  What?  Where?  How many?

 

Fingering the Information.  During the Memorization part of the exam you will not be permitted to hold a pencil in your hand.  But your fingers will be not taken away from you.  Your index finger will assist you in remembering.

 

Use your finger to circle, trace, underline, poke at, or emphasize in any way the important details.  Information in picture form should be literally traced with your finger.  With a floorplan or diagram of a building layout, "walk through" it with your finger, taking note of important items.  Fingerwork will reinforce what your eyes see.  When you are doing this sort of fingerwork on a test, it may look weird to somebody else, but being odd in this way may help you get the job.

 

TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR READING OR VERBAL COMPREHENSION

 

Verbal comprehension measures your ability to read and understand the types of written materials a firefighter might be expected to read on the job.  You will be presented with a reading passage and then asked to answer questions about the passage.  All the information needed to answer the questions will be included in the passage itself.

 

In answering the questions based on the reading passage, it is important that you answer the questions only according to the information given in the passage.  If you have information from your own experience and knowledge, you should not use it to answer a question of this type.  Even if you think that there is a mistake in the reading selection, you must still answer the question on the basis of the information given in the reading passage.

 

The kinds of Reading Comprehension questions which appear on a civil service exam tend to be somewhat different from the reading comprehension questions on a school related exam.  That is because there are different kinds of reading--skimming, reading for general understanding, reading for details, etc.  Your exam will be based mostly on reading technical materials, not anything like a novel or essay.  Hence, your exam will have more focus on exact grasp of details. 

 

There are certain techniques that will help you do well on reading comprehension questions.  Here is a summary of the most important techniques.

 

Use your pencil.  To begin with, use your pencil as a pointer.  Using the pencil to guide your eye along a line of text helps you to focus on the details in the reading; it holds your attention to the precise words in the passage.  In a long test, attention may weaken.  Fatigue may blunt your attention to details.  But using your pencil as a pointer will help to preserve your attention to details.

 

Another benefit of using the pencil as a pointer is that it will probably speed up your reading.  The steady flow of the pencil across the page with each line of text draws the eye along at a steady pace.  Do not go faster than you can grasp the text, but do try to keep your reading going at a steady pace set by the pencil.

 

Circle key words and phrases.  In a Reading Comprehension test you are not reading for just a vague general understanding of the passage.  You usually have to read for detailed understanding.  There will be individual words which are important for grasping a point exactly.  You do not want to write so much on a passage that it is hard to read a second time if you need to go back to check a detail.  But you do want to circle key words or phrases which will enable you to zero in on precise points needed to answer a question.

 

Read short questions carefully the first time.  When you are reading a short question for the first time, read it carefully.  A short question is one that is only seven or eight lines long.  You can retain all of the main ideas and remember where particular things are mentioned from one careful reading.  Hence, you do not want to waste time reading this passage twice.

 

Besides wasting time, another bad consequence of reading a short question very carelessly the first time is that it may leave you with some false impressions of what you have read.  Wrong ideas can get stuck in your head from a careless reading.  Then it will be more difficult to get the correct answer.

 

For long questions, look ahead to see what is being asked.  Take a look at the "stem" of the question, the sentence which precedes the answer choices.  And look at the kinds of choices which are being offered.  Sometimes reading passages are long but the questions are asking only for particular details.  In that case you can often skim a long passage to find the particular detail.

 

Keep forging ahead.  Do not get bogged down if there is a word or sentence you do not understand.  You may get the main idea without knowing the individual word or sentence.  Sometimes you can sense the meaning of the word from the context.  Sometimes the word or sentence may not be the basis of any question.  If there is some idea you need to answer a question but do not understand, read it one more time.  If you still do not understand it, move on.  You can come back to this question later if you have more time at the end of the test.

 

Picture what you read.  Try to form a picture in your mind as you read.  School books used to teach reading contain many pictures because pictures aid comprehension.  When reading material without pictures, it will aid your comprehension if you use your imagination to picture in your mind what you are reading.  Read as if you were a professional illustrator who has been hired to do an illustration for the passage.

 

Ask yourself questions as you read.  When you finish reading a sentence, ask yourself what the author was saying.  At the end of a whole paragraph, ask yourself what the point of the whole paragraph was.  If you ask yourself questions, you will find that you are paraphrasing the passage in your mind.  That will help your understanding.

 

Know where the author stands.  Sometimes a passage will contain an evaluation of some ideas of tools or procedures.  The author may want to make the point that certain practices or procedures are bad or that certain tools may not be right for a particular job.  Be sure you know if the author is accepting or rejecting something.

 

Another good reading comprehension strategy is to read the questions before starting the passage.  This does not mean to read the answer choices at this time.  By reading the questions, you will have an idea of what information you will need after reading the passage.  This may alert you to certain details, ideas and specific areas in the paragraph where the questions are being drawn from.

TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR SPATIAL ORIENTATION AND MAPS

 

Spatial Orientation questions measure your ability to keep a clear idea of where you are in relation to the space in which you happen to be.  You will be given diagrams and asked to answer questions regarding that defined space.  The diagrams or maps used for Spatial Orientation questions are somewhat similar to materials used for Memorization or Visualization questions.  But the Spatial Orientation materials tend to be more complex, and the questions tend to emphasize either where you are in a diagram or how to go from one spot to another on the diagram or map.

 

Spatial Orientation questions may be based on diagrams on buildings, outdoor areas, or any other "space" in which you might happen to be as a firefighter.  These are not timed questions.  You will probably be allowed to use your pencil to write on the diagrams or maps as a way of testing your answer choices, since these are not Memorization questions.  (If you are forbidden to write on the question paper, you can still use the eraser end of your pencil or your finger to trace things on the question paper, or use scrap paper, if provided.)

 

When using your pencil to write on a diagram or map, be sure to write lightly.  Erase any of your jottings which do not work out or are no longer needed.  If there are several questions based on the same diagram or map and you have made pencil markings for them, the diagram can get quite confusing as a result of your markings.  Hence, you should erase your markings as soon as you are done with them, if there is another question to be answered on the basis of the same diagram.

 

Many diagrams or maps use symbols.  Look at the whole page to see if there is a key to symbols.  For instance, a note at the top or bottom of a diagram might indicate that a tiny circle represents a fire hydrant; a circle with a letter in it might represent the location of a firefighter in the diagram.  An arrow may indicate what direction something is moving in.  A dotted line may indicate movement of something or someone from one position to another position in the diagram or map.  Be sure to look for a key to symbols.  An important feature of many diagrams and maps is the direction of north, east, south and west.  Look for a symbol to indicate directions.

 

Often questions are based on phrases like "to your left" or "to your right" or "to the left of the rear entrance."  The test maker often approaches a diagram or map from the side or from the top, so that "left" and "right" do not correspond to where you are sitting in relation to the diagram.  Just turn the test paper sideways or upside down when figuring out the answers to such questions.  Turn the diagram or map so that "left" or "right" on the map is the same direction as your left or right hand.

 

TEST-TAKING STRATEGY FOR VISUALIZATION

 

 Visualization is the ability to picture a scene or object in your imagination.  It includes the ability to picture changes in that scene or object.  This type of test question asks, “Can you imagine…?”  It is a test of your imagination.  It requires you to think in pictures.  If you have read a lot of comic books in your childhood, you may be quite skilled at thinking in pictures.  In fact, if you think of yourself as an illustrator whose job it is provide pictures to illustrate written materials, you will find these questions easy to handle.

 

Often the key to a Visualization question is noting direction accurately:  North, East, South and West.  When direction is part of the material, put the traditional symbol on your drawing with North in the twelve o-clock position.  Focus your attention on unchanging parts.  Viewing objects from the opposite side reverses location of all parts of the object.  For example, keep in mind that when objects are viewed from the back or inside, the parts of the object appear in reverse location.