How the technical section works
The Bundeswehr says that someone with good technical test results may be offered work such as vehicle or aircraft maintenance, and that further tests depend on the assignment and training you want. So the technical section matters most if you are aiming at a technical career.
Candidates describe gear trains (“which way does gear 7 turn if gear 1 turns anticlockwise?”), which shelf is most stable, which cart carries the most weight, circuits and basic physics. Each item is a diagram with a short question and a few options.
Rules that settle most items
Name the mechanism first, then apply its rule:
- Gears: neighbouring gears turn opposite ways. A gear with fewer teeth turns faster, by the ratio of the teeth.
- Belts: an open belt keeps the direction, a crossed belt reverses it.
- Levers: weight times distance from the pivot must match on both sides to balance.
- Pulleys: the more rope sections hold the moving pulley, the less force you need and the more rope you pull.
- Circuits: in series, one break stops everything; in parallel, each branch works on its own.
- Stability: a wider base and a lower centre of gravity make a structure harder to tip.
Worked example
Gear A has 12 teeth and drives gear B, which has 36 teeth, directly. A turns clockwise at 30 turns a minute. How does B turn? The options are clockwise at 90, anticlockwise at 10, anticlockwise at 90 and clockwise at 10.
Meshing gears turn opposite ways, so B turns anticlockwise. B has three times as many teeth, so it turns three times slower: 30 ÷ 3 = 10 turns a minute. The answer is anticlockwise at 10. Had a third gear sat between A and B, B would turn clockwise, still at 10: a gear in the middle reverses direction but does not change the overall speed ratio.
Tips for the real technical section
- In a long gear train, count the gears: odd-numbered gears turn the same way as the first, even-numbered the opposite way.
- Check direction and speed separately. Many wrong options get one right and the other wrong.
- Revise school physics on levers, pressure and simple circuits. Some candidates also report general technical questions, such as what a diode does.
- The questions are in German, so learn the key terms: Zahnrad, Hebel, Rolle, Stromkreis, Reihenschaltung, Parallelschaltung.
Practise Technisches Verständnis on CogniPrep
Our drill gives you 16 drawn items on a 12-minute clock, covering gears and belts, levers, pulleys, circuits, structures and fluids, with three or four options each. It adapts over five levels, starting at level 3 and moving one level per answer, and items the clock cuts off count as wrong. Your score out of 100 reflects the level you hold in the second half of the run. The items are ours, in English; the count, clock and step rule are ours too.