Just received the training booklet ahead of my upcoming OASC at Cranwell. Wondering what peoples thoughts and experiences are regarding the individual planning exercise, and more importantly the boards expectation of levels of mathematics required? I am confident regarding the other assessments, just slightly concerned about my ability to do the distance, speed time calculations etc.
Any help or advice greatly received.
Practise them in the various guises.
Speed =
Distance =
Time =
Mostly it will be general level maths. Nothing too complicated.
Yeah, practice speed/distance/time calculations to a good level - the planning exes arenât that difficult from what I remember, just make sure youâre really good at the basics.
I have a couple of planexes I can send to you for practice if you like.
From what Iâve seen of it, itâs mostly speed distance time calculations. But needs to get down to minutes and almost feet per minute. If you get involved in IET and route planning it will give you a decent grounding, but ask people to make things up and work to minutes. Do they not give some examples? Find someone to sit down with, with good maths skills to go through it.
Given some of the people Iâve seen get through OASC who struggle with adding up a round, the levels/expectation canât be too high.
But the scenarios they give are fanciful and if you found yourself in that situation youâd call someone and make other arrangements. There is also the questions; Why? What is the relevance to me being an officer in the cadet forces? Which would be relevant in a wash up question round, but would go down like cold vegetable soup.
Thanks for your help so far.
I really struggle to understand how this tells the board whether or not you have the qualities to be an officer. I am a senior ops manager in my real job, managing 20+ engineers and project managers - the fact I struggle with mental arithmetic hopefully shouldnât hold me back. If on the other hand I had a spread sheetâŠ
that would be great Matt if you could send some stuff over 
PM me your email
Donât worry about it too much, they arenât after exact figures, it is sufficient to round up or down for easily calculated answers. You will only use it in the planning exercises to work out estimated timings for your plan of action. I am awful with mental arithmetic (worryingly Iâm also an engineer) but found it fairly easy. They are assessing your ability to formulate a cogent plan rather than your ability to be the next countdown champion.
As others have said practice distance/speed/time calculations. Your planning exercises will include a map with various locations and objectives with several modes of travel and associated speeds. You will need to quickly formulate a plan to complete the objectives efficiently using the resources available. You will then present a quick overview to the board before going through the plan in detail with timings. They WILL challenge your decisions so expect to defend them or offer an alternative if you have obviously made a miscalculation or omission.
MB
Mental arithmetic is becoming if not already become a lost art and I know from years of teaching cadets, they struggle with very basic mathematical processes despite knowing that they are taught it, so having it as part of a selection process seems totally nonsensical.
We taught our kids times tables by rote as what they did in school was no more than a list of numbers increasing by a value and no understanding of the relationships ie 37 is the same as 73, but doing 3,6,9,12,15,18,19,21 and then 7,14,21 where is the learning of relationships between figures.
As for a cogent plan from the laid out nonsense, who cares. In the real world you would make contact and arrange something different, rather than keep to some fanciful plan. It called real life and speaking to people rather than tying yourself in knots.
The maths doesnât. Itâs just a basic tool.
The Individual Planning Exercise is their opportunity to see how you go about solving a problem, if you can formulate a plan, how good your attention to detail is and how you react to changes (âwhat ifsâ) at short notice under pressure. Theyâll then quite probably try and pull your plan apart!
These are the same types of problems you will need to solve in the classroom and in practical exercises on the North Airfield at Cranwell and in the field proper whilst on IOT.
TBPH as an adult the chance of getting through a week without needing to do something like this paper exercise for real is unlikely. So the RAF getting over excited about you doing a theoretical paper exercise and then pulling it apart is total and utter nonsense. I can see it when someone is going for a job for with the RAF, but we arenât.
Even if you are a single without the âadvantageâ of children throwing up (sometimes literally) curved balls of illness, injury, parties etc, you will be at work where things are very dynamic, or, even school when it comes to last minute homework or âyou have a test tomorrowâ. All of which require some thinking on the feet and altering well laid plans. Even anyone who has been in the Corps for more than 5 minutes will have had to respond to staff and or cadet no shows and doing things as you go.
Ha. Sorry, went a bit Regular with my answer. Mind you, I would still expect them to be probing to see if there is a certain element of flexibility and would be surprised if they just said âWell done, carry onâ.
Donât worry too much about it! Have a good basic knowledge though.
Maths was not my strongest point, they highlighted that in my feedback but I was able to accommodate their questions on my plan, tell them why I didnât chose a certain thing in my plan and could adapt to them trying to change it. E.g. The bicycle you wanted to take has a flat tyre, whatâs your next option.
Be confident in front of the panel and blow their socks off with your overall interview at the end. Advice I was given from someone who used to be on the panel.
Honest question.
Why does there need to a maths based element at all? Is it just to pad out something?
Ride it anyway as it would be quicker than walking. When I was a kid I rode my bike 10 miles with a flat tyre as it would was quicker than walking and you can always replace a tyre.
Do they need you to specify that you look like an extra from the Tour de France? With tight fitting shorts and top, flashing lights attached to every conceivable extremity, helmet and all the other nonsense people seem to think is essential to just go for a ride a bike.
Did the exercise on Monday, completely screwed up the maths, but did have a plan of action and was able to come up with a couple of âwhat ifâsâ for when the boarding officer threw a curve ball in, which he did, many times. Overall I really struggle to see what this particular exercise offers for VRT candidates, other than to see how you operate under a stressful environment and be able to think on your feet when quizzed. Now to wait 6 weeks for the result! 
What like work and home arenât stressful environments.
I went through the same process six months ago and thought it was one of the best exercises for VRT candidates, for exactly the reasons you said!
Can I have your life, please?
If you need a made up pointless exercise in a process that doesnât result in a salary paying job to see if you can operate in a stressful environment, your day to day life must be easy.
Itâs true that some young VRT candidates have high-level skills and appropriately high-level jobs, but there are also lots who donât.
I honestly think that if you struggled that badly with the planning exercises, you would struggle to be a credible VRT officer.
If that was the case then the ACO should implement a minimum GCSE/A Level requirement for a commission. They donât currently (as I assume it is not required) and as such I think your comment shows a complete lack of respect for someone you do not know.