Purpose: This test provides a fairly quick, easy to administer test of general mental ability. Like most general intelligence tests, it taps verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, and general abstract reasoning.
When To Use It: We often use this test as an additional component to our Personal Style Inventory (that measures personality traits), where we need an untimed measure of cognitive aptitude.
Target Group: This test can be used with any type candidate.
High Scorers: High scorers are quick to pick up new information, are alert to new ideas that might be applied to their jobs, are capable of grasping difficult concepts on their own, handle a large fund of information, deal with various forms of complexity in a job with ease, and are able assess relevant factors in ambiguous situations to come up with logical, insightful decisions.
Low Scorers: Low scorers need structured learning experiences to consume new information. They need rules and procedures to guide their decision making on the job. Preferring jobs with narrow assignments and responsibilities, low scorers do not cope well with complexity or volume of information.
Number of Items: N=44 items which are fairly equally divided between verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, and abstract reasoning.
Time Limits: Untimed
Validity: The set of aptitude items correlates highly (r=.70**) with a full scale intelligence test. In various validation studies, this test is correlated with overall job performance for engineers (r=.42**), for banking professionals (r=.31**), for insurance professionals (r=.29**), managers (r=.35**), store managers (r=.39**), restaurant managers (r=.37**), technical support (r=.32**), customer service (r=.27**), MIS professionals (r=.35**), general professional jobs (r=.28**).
Pattern Sample Items: For each of the problems in this test, candidates are presented with a series of figures on the left side of the page. The last frame has a question mark indicating that they are to decide what figure would come next in the series. Five possible answers are given on the right side of the page. The task is to choose a figure from the answer choices on the right that represents the best choice for the "next one" in the series.
