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Customer Reviews:
Shocking errors and misprints
It is quite unbelievable that a book intended to prepare you for one of the most highly competitive recruitment schemes has so many spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, inaccuracies and misprints. The book only offers two real practice tests of each type for Fast Stream entrance, and it is noticeable that several of the answers given as correct are plainly wrong. Some questions are carelessly constructed (as if taken from the context of another test) and many have been recycled from previous editions of this book.
There are only a few positives, which, if you are really dedicated to succeeding at the Civil Service entrance you will appreciate despite the severe drawbacks. This book is very current (2007) and includes the revised format of Fast Stream tests. There are lots of tips which are reasonably helpful (although a good quality Careers service will have the same). More importantly this seems to be the only book dedicated to the specific tests in the fast stream.
Even with wrong answers, the tests make for good mental practice - although I would not give any value to the results of these practice tests. You would be just as well to revise the fundamentals of GCSE maths and other reasoning tests.
A Useful Aid to Practise for the Exams 
I thought this was a pretty good book for getting used to the type of questions encountered in the civil service tests. I would agree that a better title would be How to Practise for the Civil Service Qualifying Tests, but overall it is useful for improving performance with these kind of questions.
Questions after questions after questions. 
This is good to practice tests with, but for helping you understand some of the answers... do not rely on it at all. The mathematical sections are good - especially with the area in which you have to find the patterns in number tables. If you find this area difficult, practicing from this book will help you be able to spot these patterns and identify characteristics belonging to each type of pattern involved.
But with the verbal organisation sections for example, though there are plenty of questions to test yourself with, some of the "correct" answers are somewhat bizzare and lack any explanation as to why they are such. I found this incredibly frustrating.
After I had been flumoxed by these answers given, I gave this book to a couple of friends of mine, both english teachers, and neither of them seemed very satisfied with many of the answers given in the back as there always seems to be more than one combination of answers. Both of them showed almost as much frustration as I did and they were relieved that I was the one taking the test rather than them!
Buy it, but only for practice. Don't get too annoyed if the answers in the verbal organisation are... odd, to say the least.
Useful, if taken with a pinch of salt
I used this book to sucessfully navigate myself through the initial stages of the Faststream process. Whilst providing plentiful examples to practice on, especially compared to the tiny booklet provided by Faststream's recruitment agency, it falls down on two counts. First, not enough explanation is given to the answers, especially as regards the Analysis of Information test. Second, and more importantly, some of the answers provided are incorrect. This is, in some cases, due to the fact that some of the questions have one or more answer. Others are due the total ambiguity of some of the questions. The numerical test question about holiday bookings is a case in point. Anyone who has booked package holidays in the past will see what I mean.
Despite these flaws, I will give this book a '3' as it does really help you get into the swing of doing these questions. Just be sure that the book is not wrong when you mark your answers...
Essential but with shortcomings
This book would be better entitled "(How to) Practice for the Civil Service Qualifying Tests". I am using this book with a view to taking the Faststream Qualifying Test. While it offers a good number of essential practice questions and answers, and also provides advice on practicing for, and taking, the tests, it has shortcomings. It does not offer full explanations for most of the answers to the test questions (unlike the obligatory Practice Qualifying Test downloadable from the Faststream website once you have registered). It does not offer any insight into the "rules of the game" implict in the various types of question. It does not offer any 'quick tips' for identifying and answering various types of question. There are probably good commercial reasons for this. And indeed HM Govt may well require that this the case. But the content falls short of the promise of the title. Nevertheless, you'll need to buy it anyway - for all those extra pratcice questions.
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related blog:
How to Pass the Civil Service Qualifying Tests
How to Pass the Civil Service Qualifying Tests.
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