I passed both on the first attempt, MASS and POSS.
I would be surprised if I had more than five or six questions wrong on the entire POSS exam.
With the MASS there was one section that gave me a bit of a hurdle, that one with 20 problems and they pertain to "determine how the finished part should look" and we were basically given 20 minutes, so in theory one minute per problem, I didn't finish that section, I had 13 problems done and 7 that I didn't finish, but I am certain that 12 of those 13 were correct. I thought it was better to have the most correct answers possible than to rush through it and wind up with a crap-shot.
There wasn't a single section on the POSS that I didn't finish. I've seldom encountered a test that I didn't do well on except for some Accounting exams (reading/analyzing financial forms/statements is one thing, preparing them and reconciling them is an entirely different matter) and some Calculus exams where I had to really go into over-drive to make Cs and Bs.
Virtually everybody in the nuclear program at the community college failed the POSS on their first attempt, and most of them failed again on their second attempt. However, everybody passed the MASS on their first attempt.
When sitting around outside of class and talking with fellow students, I kept my opinion to myself that the POSS was an easy test as almost everybody I was speaking with had failed the test their first attempt and then most failed it the second time.
I didn't do any sort of "study" for the MASS/POSS, I simply made it a point to try to get a good night's sleep, eat well in the morning, and go into the exam relaxed and ready to take the tests.
The POSS parts that pertain to reading comprehension, I would suggest reading the questions first and then scanning the paragraphs to find the relevant information/answers. I tend to read incredibly fast and I remember almost everything I read (to the point where when it comes to light reading/novels I can read a 300 page novel in 4-6 hours depending on how I feel that day and then remember entire paragraphs/pages later, and I can read 200-300 page books on political theory/foreign relations/etc in 10-12 hours). Even still, I read the questions before reading the paragraphs and only read the paragraphs through in their entirety after I had answered all the questions that I was able to answer without thoroughly reading the paragraphs, then I thoroughly read the paragraphs, answered the rest of the questions, checked my answers by reading through everything again, and moved on.
The MASS parts that required visualizing "which way should you make this rod turn to make this rod turn clock-wise" (involving one rod that is up against another rod that is up against another rod, etc) I had to more or less construct a make-shift group of rods using two pencils and the click eraser to get a real image of what I was dealing with. I have trouble picturing those things in my head so I like to see a little model/demo.
I don't know my exact scores and I am uncertain if I will ever be able to find out, or how I would go about finding out, but I would wager that I had an incredibly high score on the POSS, possibly close to perfect, while I probably had a comfortable yet not so high score on the MASS. If I had to take a shot in the dark, on a 100% scale, I might have managed a 98% on the POSS and an 89 to 91 percent on the MASS.
Last year when I was thinking of the US Border Patrol as a career I scored a 98 on their exam but then I decided that it wasn't worth the hassle/cost to move to the Southwest border (which might entail California) to make $35,000 dollars per year in a career where I would be thrown to the wolves if I had to use my weapon to defend myself/my partners. Just like those two agents who opened fire on a drug cartel jeep that was trying to run them down, they spent several years in prison before Bush commuted their sentences and had them released, but they were not pardoned, merely commuted/early release, so they are still felons for life, with all the detriments to employment that the felon status entails, along with the accompanying loss of civil liberties.
I had also tested for a police department in a coastal city that was about 1,100 miles away, I was one point away from a perfect score on the written test and the physical was pass/fail and I passed, but instead of immediately bringing people in for interviews as was their original plan, they had a budget crisis and a hiring freeze. It wasn't until 18 months later when they were out of the hiring freeze, by which time my application (including my test scores) was 15 months stale. I was invited to come and test again but I decided that having made one trip, which entailed about 19.5 hours of driving (along with approx 38-40 gallons of gas) just to get there, in addition to a hotel for two days while I was there, had cost enough, and that I was not going to expend more money chasing a job that was probably going to be given to a local anyway.
So it came to be that I decided that my father's career wasn't all that bad, he always had something neat to say about his work, he was always fixing things around the house, fixing computers, building computers, fixing computers for others, so why not go study electronic engineering technology and see where I could go with that. I figured it would be a reasonable addition to my business degree and that I would have the management/administration side covered and then I could add some technical stuff to that and maybe work a few years in something technical and be tapped for a supervisor/manager role. My first semester in the electronic degree program I had an opening in my schedule so I filled it with a nuclear industry fundamentals class just to see what it was about, get some insight into the industry... Also, I figured it would be an easy A with only a few essays and maybe a term paper.
The class was very well conducted, the professor was very professional, I believe I built up a rapport with him and things went well. I'd say that probably six or seven weeks into the class I knew that I was going to go for both the Nuclear Engineering Technology and Electronic Engineering Technology and try to get into the nuclear industry.
When it comes to tests it is important to always be relaxed, well-rested, well-fed, properly hydrated, and make sure you use the bathroom before testing begins. If you tend to have stomach problems, take something to help settle your stomach before going into the test. Depending on the nature of the test, as in the test material/subject, you may want to spend hours or days studying.
In my experience tests that require moderate to significant levels of study would be Law class tests, Calculus tests, Chemistry tests, Accounting tests, AC/DC/electrical tests, etc.
Tests where you can just show up and take the test would include, Police written exams, MASS/POSS, Political Science tests, Philosophy tests, Management/Administration tests (assuming you paid attention in class and know the terms/theories that the test will encompass), Algebra tests, and things of that nature.
Not to beat up on anybody who may have failed the exam but my view of the MASS/POSS test is that it basically asks the question, "did you graduate high school by occupying a chair and having a pulse or did you actually earn your diploma and learn something useful while in high school?" and if you were educated to a 10th grade level and understand Algebra 1, maybe some Algebra 2, in addition to having 9th-10th grade reading comprehension skills, the POSS test won't be a problem.
Basically the company wants to know, "did you earn your way out of high school, did you deserve your diploma, or did they just hand you a diploma and push you out with the rest of the kids."
The SAT was more challenging than the POSS test. Likewise the ACT was more challenging than the POSS test. High school AP examinations were more challenging than any of the reading components of the POSS test.
In theory anybody who has a high school diploma should be able to pass the MASS/POSS.
However, not all high school diplomas are equal, some have AP/honors/etc, some are Summa Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, Cum Laude, others are the bare minimum needed to graduate with remedial classes, and others are social diplomas simply handed out for reasons related to esteem building and inflating graduation rates. Thus the industry needs to have a standardized test to determine if you are a legitimate high school graduate who earned the diploma you have, or if you are a social graduate.
