It seams like majority of the first round interviews involve some kind of analytical ability/aptitude/number tests. Any advice on how I could prepare for this? Maybe there is a site or a book that I could use to practice?

There are lots of books on this, but my first suggestion is to visit the SHL website - they are one of the biggest suppliers of psychometric tests - and provide examples for people to practice on... Don't worry about the tests though - they don't require particularly advanced maths skills, just the ability to interpret information on tables/graphs and make basic caluculations (percentages, etc) on them.

Have a look at www.vault.com and www.wetfeet.com. Both of them offer books with cases to practice. Good luck!

Anna,I have two sets on material. One is for the maths and the other is verbal reasoning. These are hard copies and I obtained them a few years ago. They have proved invaluable in securing my entry into consulting. I am quite happy to lend them out as I am sure I wont be sitting such tests again for a while.If you live in London then you are welcome to borrow them. Let me know if you want them and I will send my contact details.

Hi - most grateful if you could please share the materials. Willing to pay postage etc. Live in Exeter.Tony

S, thanks, that would be very helpful unless you already sent them to the other person requesting them. I live in London. E-mail me on annatepl@yahoo.co.uk Thanks

Hey S and Anna, I am interested in the material also and would be grateful if you could share it with me. I live in London, e mail sarahmorales@hotmail.com

Anna,You can borrow them and maybe share them with the others. I will send you an email and copy the others. I work in Holborn so you can pick them up sometime. S

All,I have sent an email to Anna and Sarah, if they reply then they can borrow the material. Anthony, I don't have your email addy but you can arrange with Anna/Sarah to get a copy of the material.S

Hi Anna, I'd also like to borrow the items if possible? Many thanks

Hi S,Pls could you let me know the title, author, and ISBN code of those books?I too would like to explore them but if I wait for my turn to get the books from you, maybe I would have reached my retirement age by then! :-)Another point - I would suggest NOT to depend on the SHL website as the sample questions given there are too easy and low-level. I would go to the extent of saying that they are misguiding candidates. I have first-hand experience of this. The actual tests are far taxing - the questions are too long, too much data to interpret, too less a time (less than a minute for each question), etc.But skill-wise, one won't need a PhD in computational mathematics (whatever that means!). It's basic operators like +, -, x, /, %, etcRegards,A