40 questions across numerical, verbal, logical, spatial, and mechanical reasoning. Instant standard score, percentile, and a worked answer for every question.
Take Aptitude TestTimed mode (20 min)
Optional. Adds a 20-minute countdown for exam-style practice. Untimed by default.
Everything below is free and appears the moment you answer the last question.
A standard score on a familiar 100-point scale, an estimated percentile, and a bar for each of the five domains. Not a teaser: the whole report is free.
After the test you can open any question, see the correct answer, and read a short worked solution naming the exact reasoning skill it trains.
Work untimed to learn, or switch on the optional 20-minute timer to simulate employer test pressure. Retakes are tracked on your device.
A working miniature of the free report, filled with example data. Click the tabs to look around. Yours is generated instantly from your own answers.
Sample report · example data
Average
Standard score, estimated against a general adult norm. This is a free practice measure, not a certified assessment.
Aptitude score 112 sits at the 78th percentile, ahead of approximately 78% of test takers.
Breakdown
Working with numbers under light pressure: percentages, rates, series, and word problems.
Estimated 90th percentile for this domain
Understanding words and statements precisely: vocabulary, analogies, and careful reading.
Estimated 76th percentile for this domain
Drawing valid conclusions: syllogisms, series, ordering, and rule finding.
Estimated 76th percentile for this domain
Seeing patterns in figures: rotation, size, count, and multi-rule matrices.
Estimated 55th percentile for this domain
Applied physical intuition: gears, levers, pulleys, and hydraulics.
Estimated 55th percentile for this domain
Strongest domain
Numerical Reasoning
7 of 8 correct. Working with numbers under light pressure: percentages, rates, series, and word problems.
Most room to grow
Mechanical Reasoning
5 of 8 correct. Reviewing the worked answers is the fastest way to improve here.
Employer bands
Employers who use aptitude tests rarely publish cutoffs, but percentile bands are a reasonable guide to how screening tends to work. Estimated from this test’s general adult norm.
| Screening band | Standard score |
|---|---|
| Selective technical and analyst screening (about top 10%) | 120 |
| Your score | 112 |
| Competitive graduate screening (about top 25%) | 110 |
| Typical adult average | 100 |
| Broad entry-level screening (about bottom 25% screened out) | 90 |
Estimates for orientation only. Real employers use their own tests, norms, and cutoffs, and most weigh interviews and experience alongside any score.
Answer review
A worked explanation for every question, free, including the reasoning skill each one trains. Mistakes are listed first.
Why: $600 is 80% of the original price, so the original is 600 / 0.8 = $750. Adding 20% to $600 gives the wrong answer of $720.
Skill trained: reverse percentage
Why: The load is shared across the 4 supporting segments, so the effort is 200 / 4 = 50 N. You trade force for pulling 4 times as much rope.
Skill trained: mechanical advantage
Why: Reticent and talkative are opposites, so the answer must be the opposite of frugal: extravagant. Thrifty is a synonym trap.
Skill trained: verbal analogy
Three rows from the sample. Your report lists all 40 questions, with your mistakes first.
Improve
Example history. Attempts are saved on your own device, so a retake shows exactly how much you improved.
Example data, not a real person's result. Buttons inside the sample are part of the mock. Percentiles are estimated against a general adult norm.
Eight questions in each domain, ordered from easy to hard. Untimed by default; a 20-minute timed mode is one toggle away.
Your standard score, estimated percentile, strongest and weakest domains, and a bar chart of all five areas appear the moment you finish.
Open your mistakes (or all 40 questions), read the worked solutions, and see which reasoning skill each one trains.
Attempts are saved on your device, so a second run shows exactly how much your score moved and where.
Each domain has 8 questions, ordered from easy to hard.
Percentages, rates, number series, and word problems. This is the domain employer tests lean on most heavily, because most jobs involve interpreting numbers at some point.
Worked example
A laptop costs $600 after a 20% discount. What was the original price?
Answer: $600 is 80% of the original price, so the original is 600 / 0.8 = $750. The trap answer is $720, which comes from adding 20% to $600 instead.
Vocabulary, analogies, classification, and reading statements precisely. Verbal items reward careful reading over speed: the wrong answers are usually almost right.
Worked example
RETICENT is to TALKATIVE as FRUGAL is to: thrifty, extravagant, wealthy, careful?
Answer: Reticent and talkative are opposites, so you need the opposite of frugal: extravagant. Thrifty is the synonym trap.
Syllogisms, letter series, ordering puzzles, and rule induction. Logical items test whether a conclusion actually follows, not whether it merely sounds plausible.
Worked example
If it rains, the match is cancelled. The match was not cancelled. What follows?
Answer: It did not rain. Rain guarantees cancellation, so a played match rules rain out. This valid form is called modus tollens.
Figure matrices: 3x3 grids where you infer the rule (rotation, size, count, color, or several at once) and pick the missing cell. The closest cousin to classic IQ test items.
Worked example
A grid where shapes shrink across each row and rotate 30 degrees per step. Which figure completes it?
Answer: Apply both rules to the last visible cell: one size-step smaller and one 30-degree turn further. Only one option satisfies both.
Gears, levers, pulleys, and pressure. No formulas required: every item can be solved with physical intuition about how force and motion transfer.
Worked example
Three gears in a row: A drives B, B drives C. Gear A turns clockwise. Which way does C turn?
Answer: Each mesh reverses direction: A clockwise, B counterclockwise, C clockwise. With an odd number of gears, the first and last always match.
An aptitude test measures how well you reason with unfamiliar material: numbers you have never seen, arguments you have never heard, figures that follow a rule you have to discover on the spot. It is different from a knowledge test, which asks what you already know, and from a personality questionnaire, which asks how you tend to behave. Aptitude items have objectively correct answers, and your score reflects how many you solved.
Employers use aptitude tests because reasoning ability is one of the most consistent predictors of how quickly someone learns a new role. Decades of research on general mental ability, going back to studies summarized by Schmidt and Hunter, place it among the strongest single predictors of job performance across occupations. That is why screening tests like the CCAT, SHL verify suite, and the Wonderlic sit in front of so many hiring funnels.
This test gives you the same style of measurement without the stakes. It draws 40 original questions from the five domains employer tests use most, scores them instantly in your browser, and then does something the real screening tests never do: it shows you the worked solution for every question. Nothing is emailed, nothing is stored on a server, and the full report is free.
It is also worth separating aptitude from skills. A typing test, a coding challenge, or an Excel assessment measures trained ability with a specific tool; an aptitude test measures the general reasoning that sits underneath all of them. Employers often use both, but they are answering different questions: can you do this task today, versus how quickly will you master tasks nobody has taught you yet.
One honesty note before you start: this is a practice test with estimated norms, not a certified psychometric instrument. It is built to give you a realistic read on your relative strengths and a way to improve them, not to certify a number for an employer.
Most employment aptitude tests sample from a small set of reasoning families. This test covers the five you are most likely to meet, with eight questions each, so your report shows a real profile rather than a single blended number. The table below maps each domain to what it measures and where you will encounter it.
| Domain | What it measures | Typical question | Where employers use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numerical | Arithmetic, percentages, rates, series | Reverse a 20% discount | Nearly all screening tests (CCAT, SHL, Wonderlic) |
| Verbal | Vocabulary, analogies, precise reading | Pick the word pair with the same relationship | Generalist and graduate screening |
| Logical | Deduction, series, rule induction | What follows from two premises | Consulting, tech, analyst roles |
| Spatial | Figure matrices, rotation, patterns | Complete the 3x3 grid | Engineering, design, technical trades |
| Mechanical | Gears, levers, pulleys, pressure | Which way does the third gear turn | Trades, manufacturing, military entrance |
The domains are correlated (people who reason well in one area tend to reason well in others), but the differences between your domains are still informative. A profile with strong numerical and weak verbal scores suggests a very different preparation plan than the reverse, and the per-question review is built to act on exactly that.
Your raw score is simply the number of questions you answered correctly, out of 40. Raw scores are hard to compare across tests, so the report also converts yours to a standard score on the familiar 100-point scale: 100 is the estimated average, and each 15 points is one standard deviation. The same conversion produces your percentile, the share of adults expected to score below you.
The conversion uses an estimated general adult norm (average raw score around 24 of 40), based on the authored difficulty of the items rather than a standardization sample, and the report labels it that way. Treat the number as a well-informed estimate with a margin of error of several points, not a laboratory measurement.
| Standard score | Estimated percentile | Band |
|---|---|---|
| 130 and above | 98th and above | High |
| 115 to 129 | 84th to 97th | Above average |
| 85 to 114 | 16th to 83rd | Average |
| 70 to 84 | 2nd to 15th | Below average |
| Below 70 | Below 2nd | Developing |
Two things the bands do not capture. First, conditions matter: a score earned in untimed practice mode is not directly comparable to one earned under the 20-minute timer, and neither is comparable to a proctored employer test taken under pressure. Second, single attempts are noisy. If your first result surprises you in either direction, a second attempt after reviewing your mistakes is a much better estimate than the first one alone.
In most hiring funnels the aptitude test is a screen, not a final decision. It usually arrives early, after the application and before a human interview, and its job is to reduce a large applicant pool to a manageable shortlist. Passing rarely gets you the job; scoring below the cutoff often quietly ends the process.
The tests you are most likely to meet: the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT), 50 questions in 15 minutes across verbal, math, and spatial items, common at startups and mid-size firms; the SHL family, which splits numerical, verbal, and inductive reasoning into separate timed modules and is common at large corporates; and the Wonderlic, 50 questions in 12 minutes, famous for its NFL history and still used in volume hiring. If you are preparing for that last format specifically, our free Wonderlic practice test reproduces the 12-minute pressure and scores you against published norm approximations.
Cutoffs vary by role and company, and few employers publish them. What is public is directional: technical and analyst roles tend to screen around the top quarter of scorers, while broad entry-level screening mostly filters out the lowest band. Your report includes an estimated version of this mapping so you can see roughly where your score would sit in a screening context.
It is worth knowing your rights as a candidate too. In most jurisdictions, employment tests must be job-related, and a low score on one test with one company says nothing permanent about you. The same person can move meaningfully between attempts with familiarity and practice, which is precisely what this page is for.
Aptitude scores are not fixed. The underlying reasoning ability moves slowly, but test performance, which is what actually gets measured, responds well to targeted practice. Three things move it most.
First, review errors rather than grinding volume. One question understood deeply beats ten answered blindly. Every question on this test ships with a worked solution that names the skill involved (reverse percentages, modus tollens, gear direction), so each mistake tells you exactly what to practice next. Research on retrieval practice consistently favors this feedback loop over passive re-reading.
Second, learn the recurring formats. Employer tests reuse a surprisingly small set of question shapes: number series, percentage reversals, syllogisms, figure matrices, seesaw problems. The first time you meet a format you spend half your time decoding the instructions; the third time you spend all of it solving. Familiarity is the cheapest score gain available, and it is entirely legitimate.
Third, rehearse under time pressure, but only after accuracy is stable. Start untimed and get the reasoning right. Then switch on the 20-minute timed mode and practice triage: answer what is fast, mark what is slow, never let one hard question eat four minutes. Most real screening tests are designed so that almost nobody finishes; points come from working the whole paper, not from perfecting the first half.
Test conditions deserve attention too. Sleep, caffeine timing, and plain nerves all move scores by real amounts, and the standard advice holds because it works: take the test rested, read each question fully before looking at the options, and use the answer choices themselves as information. On numerical items especially, the options often tell you how precise your calculation needs to be, and estimating can eliminate two of the four before you compute anything.
A realistic expectation: with a few hours of format practice and error review, moving several raw points (roughly half a standard deviation on this test) is common. What practice will not do is turn a genuine weakness into a top percentile overnight, and any resource promising that is selling something.
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Yes. The full 40-question test, the scored report with percentile and domain breakdown, and the worked explanation for every question are all free. No signup, no email, and no paywall between you and your results.
On this test, the average standard score is 100 and about two thirds of adults land between 85 and 115. A score of 115 or higher places you above roughly 84% of adults, and 130 or higher above roughly 98%. For employer screening, competitive technical roles often look for the top quarter of scorers, but every company sets its own bar.
They are close relatives, not twins. Both measure reasoning with unfamiliar material, and scores on the two correlate strongly. IQ tests aim at a single general-ability estimate under standardized conditions, while employment aptitude tests emphasize speed and job-relevant mixes of domains. If you want the IQ-style measurement, our free IQ test is built for exactly that.
Not in an absolute sense: there is no universal pass mark. In hiring, a company may set a cutoff for a specific role, and scoring below it ends that particular process. The same score might clear the bar at another company or for another role. A practice score here is information, not a verdict.
Spend the first session taking a full practice test untimed and reviewing every mistake. Spend the middle sessions drilling your two weakest domains using the worked solutions. Spend the last two sessions on full timed runs to build pacing. An hour a day for a week is enough to make the formats feel routine, which is where most quick gains live.
It varies enormously, so judge any test by whether it explains its scoring. This one publishes its norm basis (an estimated general adult average of about 24 of 40) and labels every percentile as estimated. It is accurate enough to reveal your relative strengths and track improvement, and it is honest that it is not a proctored, professionally normed instrument.
Both, in that order. Untimed first, to measure your reasoning without pacing noise and to learn from the review. Timed later, to rehearse the conditions of real employer tests, which almost always run a strict clock. The optional timer here is 20 minutes for 40 questions, a similar pace to common screening tests.
They are most common in graduate schemes, consulting, finance, software and data roles, administrative screening, skilled trades, and the military. Well-known examples include the CCAT, the SHL assessment family, and the Wonderlic. Volume-hiring employers use them to shortlist; specialist employers use them to confirm reasoning ability alongside interviews.
Because a single blended number hides what you can act on. Two people can both score 100 overall with opposite profiles: one strong numerically and weak verbally, the other the reverse. The domain bars, the strongest and weakest callout, and the per-question review are all built so you know exactly where practice will pay off.
Your test is scored in your browser, and your results live in the URL of your report page plus your own device storage for retake tracking. Nothing about your performance is tied to an account, because there is no account.
Yes, as often as you like. Attempts are saved on your device, so each new report shows your previous scores and the change. Most people improve on a second attempt after reviewing their mistakes, typically by a few raw points. Gains beyond that come from practicing the weak domains rather than repeating the same 40 questions.
No. Those are proprietary instruments owned by their publishers, and this test is not affiliated with any of them. It is an original practice test covering the same reasoning domains, so the skills you sharpen here transfer directly, but an employer score comes only from the official test they administer.
33 ICAR-based questions with an IQ score, percentile, and cognitive profile.
50 questions against a hard 12-minute clock, scored like the real exam.
A scored practice simulation of all three CogAT batteries for kids.
10 sample questions with worked answers to warm up on.
Free scored report, five domain bars, and a worked answer for all 40 questions. No signup, no email, no paywall.
Take Aptitude TestThis is a free practice aptitude test with estimated norms, built for self-insight and preparation. It is not a certified psychometric instrument, and it is not affiliated with Criteria Corp (CCAT), SHL, or Wonderlic, Inc.