The level of difficulty of your abstract aptitude test

Abstract aptitude tests are used to measure job seekers at different organisational levels (such as graduate, professional and manager) and occupations/industries. To ensure that the abstract aptitude test is accurately measuring your abilities and potential, companies administering psychometric testing typically have a broad range of abstract aptitude tests with different levels of difficulty and benchmarks.

The level of difficulty of the abstract aptitude test you will receive is determined by the following factors:

The type of job-level you are applying for – are you applying for a graduate or managerial role? Are you applying for a professional (non-managerial) or managerial role? Are you applying for a mid-level or senior managerial role? When you are applying for a managerial position, employers expect you to demonstrate stronger abstract reasoning skills than a non-managerial position.
The type of occupation/industry you are applying for – are you applying for a HR, marketing or engineering role? For example, if you apply for a graduate position in engineering, you will be expected to show higher abstract reasoning skills than if you apply for a graduate position in HR.

What is a more difficult abstract reasoning test?

Each abstract aptitude test has a certain level of difficulty that is fairly consistent across all its test questions. However, you can expect the questions at the beginning of the abstract aptitude test to be simpler than those towards the end.

The level of difficulty of an abstract aptitude test is typically defined by three factors:

the number of logical rules used to define a group of shapes
the complexity of the rules
the time constraints.

An abstract aptitude test of a low level of difficulty will typically have one simple, logical rule for each group of shapes and will not have too-tight time constraints. For example, a sequential series of shapes in which each shape turns 90 degrees anticlockwise to make up the next shape is typically considered a low level of difficulty.

As the number of rules and their complexity increases and the time allowed is shortened, the abstract aptitude test is considered to be more difficult. Typically, abstract aptitude tests that include groups of shapes that are based on two or three rules and allow between 30 and 45 seconds for each question are considered to be of medium level of difficulty. Abstract aptitude tests that include groups of shapes that are based on three or more complex rules and allow less than 30 seconds for a question are regarded to be of high level of difficulty.

Practising for your abstract aptitude test

The levels of difficulty of abstract aptitude tests mean that even if you consider yourself as having a good abstract reasoning, you are still likely to hit some hurdles when you are taking your abstract aptitude test. Therefore, we recommend that you practise as much as you can before taking the real abstract test.

Online, practice abstract aptitude tests

You can practise by taking our practice abstract aptitude tests, which are designed to match the level of difficulty of the real abstract aptitude test that you are likely to receive. Upon completing each practice abstract test, you will receive an immediate full test report including:

your total score compared against others applying for a similar role
a list of your correct and wrong answers
detailed answer explanations for each test question so you can learn how to avoid making a similar mistake in your real abstract aptitude test.

Online, abstract aptitude test course

You can take our online abstract aptitude test course to learn about the strategies and tactics for efficiently solving abstract test questions. The abstract aptitude course also includes the do’s and don’t’s of the abstract aptitude test and abstract aptitude test questions examples.

We strongly recommend that you take the abstract aptitude test course to get the ‘ins and outs’ of this test. Then apply this knowledge into practice using our practice abstract aptitude tests.