The Secret Service Entrance Exam Preparation Guide [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

The Secret Service Entrance Exam Preparation Guide [pdf]

secretservice.gov

It seems more than one HN user finds it amusing that this guide covers "rudimentary" things like predicate logic and word problems. Keep in mind that these are the skills the Secret Service wants their applicants to actively get better at before applying; it just so happens that already having these skills are common in the HN community.

I'm sure the community of Secret Service applicants finds the skills they are good at for which the HN community needs to actively get better at equally amusing. Social aptitude and physical fitness for example...

Maybe I'm getting old but my preference is to not cast stones at communities that are different than mine.

Oh shut up.

Why is this surprising? The Secret Service is notoriously difficult to get into -- its acceptance rate is 1% compared to Harvard's 6% -- but the majority of the requirements are not assessed by a written test.

It's somewhat like trying to ascertain anything about MIT based on its swim test requirement.

Wait, you have to be able to pass a swim test to be admitted to MIT?

You have to pass to graduate. IIRC it is part of MIT's "sea grant" charter.

Wow, crazy. I had no idea.

> you maybe removed or debarred from Federal Service (5 C.F.R. part 731)

One does not want to mess with organizations that have "part 731" of anything.

"Example Statement: All Secret Service Special Agents are U.S. government employees.

Invalid conclusion: All government employees are Secret Service Special Agents.

Valid conclusion: Some U.S. government employees are Secret Service Special Agents."

The funny thing is, this example isn't even true. Knowing that all Secret Service Special Agents are US government employees does not allow you to logically conclude that some US government employees are Secret Service Special Agents -- you also need to know that at least one Secret Service Special Agent exists!

For example, it is true that all humans living on Mars are US government employees -- but not at all true that some US government employees are living on Mars.

If you take the question abstractly enough, with zero a priori knowledge, then the example becomes valid again. There may not even be any US government employees at all, anywhere.

If there are no US government employees, then the statement "some US employees have property X" is false for all values of X.

Ever taken an IQ test? One reason for phrasing the questions in terms like "All gribs are freebles, and some freebles are blorts" is to avoid that kind of problem.

Obviously, the intent with all test questions of this nature is for you to treat all nouns as abstractions.

All humans living on Mars were born on Venus. <-- True

Some humans living on Mars were born on Venus. <-- False

That isn't how these questions work.

It is how logic works.

I'm sure the authors of the test are busy taking notes.

s/Secret Service Special Agents/American hijackers/

s/U.S. government employees/Americans/

We therefore conclude that "Some Americans are American hijackers." The logic's airtight; it comes from a secret service test designed to evaluate logic ability.

Suddenly the TSA makes sense.

It's sad that those photoshop skills in the cover really ruined my will to look at the document.

It all seems rather rudimentary.

You sure said that alot nicer than what I was thinking.

Those sample photograph questions sure weren't rudimentary. I think I got two of those questions right across both photos.

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