Hiring glossary
What is a cognitive ability test?
A cognitive ability test is a timed assessment of general reasoning, such as numerical, verbal and logical or abstract reasoning, that employers use to gauge how quickly a candidate can learn and solve problems.
Questions have right answers and are usually short: reading a chart, completing a sequence, drawing a conclusion from a passage. Scores are typically compared with a norm group. Well-known examples include the Wonderlic, the CCAT and the PI Cognitive Assessment.
Employers use them because reasoning ability relates to performance across many kinds of work. The trade-offs: they say nothing about role-specific skills, and in the US they can produce adverse impact on protected groups, so an employer needs to show the test is job-related. Many teams pair one with a work sample or job simulation that tests the actual work.
Also called: aptitude test, general mental ability test, reasoning test.
Example
“A train leaves at 09:40 and the journey takes 2 hours 35 minutes. When does it arrive?” is a typical numerical item. A full test mixes a few dozen items like this with verbal and pattern questions under a strict time limit.
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