Congratulations on the promotion. I remember when I took the test for Staff back in 76 and made the grade. I was lucky and got a good score and line number so I sewed it on before I got out in 77.
I saw guys that were great at their jobs but hated testing and didn't get promoted because of that. Have they taken that into account over the years? We had one guy that made master in 12 years but could not do what was required of a master. He was great with books, an almost photographic memory, and tested extremely well. The senior in charge of the branch gave him a bad eval for not being able to handle the responsibilities of a master and guaranteed he'd have to come up to speed before his next promotion. We had a guy in the shop that could tear down any piece of equipment, had to respect of the people that worked for him, but wasn't good with book learning nor testing. Practical learning he excelled at but the bad testing hurt him. I often wondered if they fixed that.