Tips for candidates

The Public Health Assessment Centre is 190 minutes in length and there are 3 component parts:

• A critical thinking paper (Watson Glaser).
• A numerical reasoning paper Rust Advanced Numerical Reasoning Appraisal (RANRA).
• Situational Judgement Test (SJT) paper.

Prepare yourself for the Assessment Centre with these tips

Take a test tutorial

A generic tutorial is available to allow you to familiarise yourself with the controls and screen layouts in advance – see Pearson VUE for details.

Use the Public Health glossary

A glossary of frequently used terms and a list of abbreviations is available for reference throughout the exam. This is particularly useful for those less familiar with the UK public health system.

Marking

As each paper is marked slightly differently it is important to follow the specific instructions for each.

Read carefully

Read the instructions and questions carefully. There may be times when you would like more information to answer questions; you need to give your best answer using the information provided in the question.

Understand the marking

For the Situational Judgement Test (SJT) it is important to bear in mind that answers are marked against a predetermined key, based on a near-miss approach. Your performance on the test as a whole will be used to determine your level of situational judgement.

Try some sample questions

Read the sample questions provided carefully. If you feel you would benefit from revisiting some areas of knowledge or practice in order to be better able to show your capability, then you should do this before the assessment.