Prepare for BPEC Aptitude Test

The BPEC or British Plumbing Employers Council require anyone attending one of their certification courses to take the BPEC aptitude test before they can get a place on the course. This test is a 45 minute test with trades based questions examining your maths and language skills in a work day context. The questions are not too difficult but the need to complete the test in the time allocated means that you are under pressure to answer quickly and accurately. This page will tell you more about the types of questions to expect and how to prepare for the different parts of the test with JobTestPrep.

Time - 45 minutes

Questions - multiple choice

Subjects - numerical, mechanical, spatial reasoning and as well as reading comprehension

In general terms the questions focus on plumbing concepts such as boiler issues, calculating bills, areas, scale readings, spatial awareness, and comprehension. The questions are not on a particularly difficult level but you have to have the knowledge and skill levels to complete the test. Brushing up on your skills is absolutely necessary if you want to do well in this test. Although you may have used these skills before in your education they are probably lying dormant. By getting a practice pack you will pick up the skills you need to get through this test.

The BPEC test contains a few different types of questions. The underlying idea behind each of them is that they have to do with a situation that you could face in your future line of work. Below we go through the different possible test questions you can face.

The questions that you are asked in the BPEC aptitude test cover a variety of topics including:

• Time questions - These questions involve working out the number of hours worked, converting times from 12 hour to 24 hour clock, and reading a clock face to work out the time.
• Geometry questions - These involve calculating area of circles, squares and rectangles.
• Money based questions - You may find several questions asking you to work out pay packets (basic and overtime pay) or bills. These also include percentages questions for VAT additions to bills. Although you may use a calculator, practising your mental arithmetic skills and making sure that you can work out percentages accurately ahead of the test will help you improve your score in the test.

Practise for these questions with our basic numerical reasoning test pack, to make sure that you know what to do in the real test.

Also known as shape manipulation, in these questions you are asked to convert shapes from 2D to 3D or the other way around, or to work out which shapes correspond to their plan. These types of questions are often used in tests for technical jobs as they examine your understanding of plans, logic and problem solving skills. You can learn more about these types of questions on our dedicated page. There are a number of different question types and they are all included in the BPEC aptitude test pack that we offer.

Mechanical reasoning questions test your understanding of mechanical concepts such as forces and motion. In the BPEC test you are faced with questions examining your ability to manipulate cogs, levers and pulleys. As you use these skills and principles on a daily basis you are tested on them in the BPEC test. To answer these questions you need to be able to apply the practical knowledge you have to the theory.

The ability to read and understand written instructions is an important skill in any job. After reading through the text you have to answer questions based on what you have read. You have to examine the text and find the focus point of the question from the text. These questions focus on your ability to extract the correct information from a passage centring on a plumbing concept, often installation instructions.

Passing the BPEC test is an absolute necessity if you want to be a plumber. Failure is not an option if you want to succeed. It is therefore imperative that you know in advance what you will be tested on, how to answer the questions, and are able to complete the test within the time limit. We recommend getting our BPEC practice test package to give you the best chance of success. Looking forward helping you on your path to success.