This document contains an employability quiz with 20 multiple choice or short answer questions about topics related to graduate employability such as common psychometric tests used by employers, top graduate employers, average graduate salaries, transferable skills, and definitions of terms like CV and PDP. It also provides the answers to the 20 questions.

1. Employability Quiz
How much do
you really
know about
graduate
employability?

2. 1. What does S.T.E.P stand for and how long
does their summer placement last?
2. Name three kinds of psychometric tests used
by employers to assess students.
3. Place the top 5 employers according to ‘The
Times’ top 100 graduate employers list for
2004/5.
4. What percentage of adverts for graduate jobs
request any discipline?

3. 5. How much do students owe at the end of their
course?
£51,010 £5,285
£15,810 £3,650
6. Scenario
A reference request arrives on your Dissertation
supervisor’s desk. What 2 things would be useful
for your supervisor to receive in order to make a
decent stab at writing a reference for you?

4. 7. The average salary for graduates in 2004/5 was?
£13,242 £21,997
£36,000 £16,676
8. PDP is an acronym for?
9. What are Springboard Skills?

5. 10. List 10 transferable skills requested by an
employer.
11. What is the definition of “Curriculum Vitae” in
the Oxford English Dictionary?
12. Retention of graduates after 3 years is on
average?
50% 60% 70%

6. 13. Which areas of employment are Scottish
Enterprise focussing their attention on?
Consider the following options:
Shipbuilding, Food & Drink, Energy,
Manufacturing, Life Science, Mining, Sports
Science, Hospitality
14. What is the angular distance at quarter past
three between the hour and minute hands on
your watch?

7. 15. List two practicals that you have carried out
as part of the Molecular & Cell Biology course
BI 1505.
16. What is the simplest way to quantify the
amount of nucleic acid in an aqueous
solution?
17. What is the main difference between a
colorimeter and a spectrophotometer?

8. 18. What is the approximate resolution (or
resolving power) of a typical university light
microscope?
19. Starting with 10 bacterial cells in a rich nutrient
medium. How many cells would there be after 2
hours, if the cells doubled every 20 minutes?
20. Amino acids have both three-letter and single-
letter abbreviations, provide both abbreviations
for the amino acid lysine.

9. Employability Quiz - Answers
1. Shell Technology Enterprise Programme.
Six – Eight weeks.
2. Numerical, Verbal, MBTI, OPQ32, 16PF
3. PWC, Civil Service, Accenture, KPMG,
NHS
4. 40% - Great Expectations…

10. Employability Quiz - Answers
5. £5,285 – an increase of £525 from 2004.
Perhaps why students modify their career
aspirations. Yet most students regard
themselves as being financially competent with
79% generally keeping up to date with bills.
Just 3% describe themselves as not yet
financially competent.
‘Unite Student Experience Report 2005’
6. Conversation/CV/Action Plan/Personal
Statement/Briefing E-Mail/etc.

11. Employability Quiz - Answers
7. Average starting salary for graduates in 2005
was £21,997. The Prospects Directory Salary
and Vacancy Survey 2004/5 found that salaries
ranged from £13,242 to £36,000. Just over a
quarter - 26% offered a minimum starting salary
of £25,000.
8. Personal Development Planning.
9. Also known as soft skills, core skills, common
skills, generic skills and transferable skills.

12. Employability Quiz - Answers
1. Oral Communication
2. Team-Working
3. Listening
4. Written Communication
5. Judgement/Decision making skills
6. Problem Solving
7. Planning & Organising
8. Business Awareness
9. Time Management
10.Flexibility & Adaptability
10.

13. Employability Quiz - Answers
11. An outline of someone’s
educational and professional history.
12. 70%
13. Energy, Food & Drink, Life
Science, Hospitality.

14. Employability Quiz - Answers
14. 12
39
6
360° divided by 12 = 30°
One quarter of 30° = 7½°

15. Employability Quiz - Answers
15. Any two of the following are acceptable:
Protein purification (Dr Long)
DNA structure, function and replication. (Dr Perkins)
DNA extraction from Halobacterium (Dr Perkins)
The Chemical Composition and structure of cells. (Dr Pugh
Humphreys)
Osmosis (Dr Page)
The Galactosidase gene of E.coli (Dr Long)
Photosynthesis practical (Dr Stuchbury)

16. Employability Quiz - Answers
16. Measure the absorbance of the solution
at 260 nm using a spectrophotometer.
17. A spectrophotometer is an instrument
designed to allow precise measurement at
a particular wavelength, while a
colorimeter is a simpler instrument, using
filters to provide broader wavebands (e.g.
light in the green, red or blue regions of
the visible spectrum).

17. Employability Quiz - Answers
18. The resolving power of a microscope is defined
as the minimum distance by which 2 points must
be separated in order for them to be perceived as
2 separate points rather than a fused image. In
the case of light microscope this is approx. 0.2
µm.
19. 10 → 20 → 40 → 80 → 160 → 320 → 640
640 cells
20. Lys and K