Aptitude tests — numerical, verbal, and logical reasoning practice

Aptitude tests (a subset of psychometric assessment) are the timed, right-and-wrong reasoning tests employers use to screen graduate and early-career applicants at scale. They usually run after the application and before the interview, and they are published by a handful of firms — SHL, Kenexa (IBM), Cubiks, Talent Q, and Saville — whose formats you can practise ahead of time.

The three you will meet most are numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, and logical (inductive/diagrammatic) reasoning. Each has a predictable structure, a tight time limit, and multiple-choice answers. Because the format repeats, practice moves your score more than in almost any other stage of hiring.

You are given tables, charts, or graphs and asked questions that require percentages, ratios, currency conversion, and reading data carefully under time pressure. The maths itself is rarely harder than upper high-school level — the difficulty is speed and not misreading the axis, units, or the row you need.

Practice moves: keep a calculator and scrap paper ready, learn percentage change and ratio shortcuts cold, and always check units and time periods (monthly vs annual, thousands vs millions). If a question needs three steps, budget the time before you start typing. When stuck, eliminate obviously wrong options and move on — a fresh question is worth more than a stubborn one.

You read a passage and judge statements as True, False, or Cannot Say. The trap is answering from your own knowledge instead of the text: "True" means the passage supports it, "False" means the passage contradicts it, and "Cannot Say" means the passage does not give enough information — even if you personally know the answer.

Practice moves: read the statement first, then scan the passage for the exact claim. Watch qualifiers — "all", "only", "most", "never" — that flip a statement from True to Cannot Say. Do not infer beyond the text. Speed comes from targeted scanning, not reading every passage twice.

These show sequences of shapes or patterns and ask for the next item or the rule that governs them. They aim to measure abstract reasoning independent of language and culture, which is why they appear in international and technical graduate schemes.

Practice moves: check one attribute at a time — rotation, colour, size, position, count — rather than trying to see the whole pattern at once. Patterns usually combine two or three simple rules. Practising sample sets teaches you the common rule types so you recognise them fast on the day.

Most aptitude tests are not negatively marked, so answer every question — guess before the timer runs out rather than leaving blanks. Scores are usually reported as a percentile against a comparison group (a norm group), not a raw mark, so employers care how you rank against other applicants, not whether you got 70%.

Many tests are now remotely proctored or use a longer supervised retest at assessment centres to confirm your unsupervised result. That means practising to genuinely improve — not having someone else sit the test — is the only strategy that survives to the next round.

Psychometric tests (personality, SJT): Psychometric Tests Guide Graduate interview techniques: Graduate Interview Techniques Interview preparation tips: Interview Tips Preparation Graduate job search playbook: Graduate Job Search Playbook