Guest article by graduatemonkey.com
What is an aptitude or reasoning test?
An aptitude (reasoning) test is a test done to determine a person’s ability or skills in a particular field of knowledge. These tests are used by employers to measure your work-related intellectual capacity. These tests are one of the most commonly used assessments in measuring candidates’ suitability for a role. The most commonly used set of intellectual tests includes – abstract/conceptual reasoning, verbal reasoning and numerical reasoning. These assessments evaluate the talent/ability/potential of the test taker to perform a certain task. Using an example to simply explain how an aptitude test is useful: a concentration test could help a rail operator evaluate a driver’s ability to keep focused while being involved in the monotonous work of driving a train or a true/false/cannot say verbal reasoning test could help a legal firm evaluate the ability of a lawyer to draw conclusions from legal documents.
80 percent vs 80th percentile: what is the difference?
Percentile score can be said to be a type of changed score in which the real score has been transformed to a percentage of test takers who scored below you.
Percentiles have a merit of being easily understood and can be very useful when giving feedback to candidates or reporting results to managers. However, it cannot be averaged nor treated in any other way mathematically. If you know your percentile score, then you know how it compares with others in the norm group. For example, if you scored at the 80th percentile, then this means that you scored better than or the same as 80% of the individuals in the norm group.
This type of score is mostly used by organizations when comparing your score with that of other candidates because they are easy to comprehend and interpret. They are very widely used when reporting results to managers.
The way that test scores tend to bunch up around the average and the use of percentiles in the interpretation of test results has important implications for you as a job candidate. This is because most aptitude tests have relatively few questions and most of the scores are clustered around the mean. The effect of this is that a very small improvement in your actual score will make a very substantial difference to your percentile score. The percentile rank of a score is the percentage of scores in its frequency distribution that are equal to or lower than it.
The difference between 80% and 80th percentile is 80% is what the test taker scored in the aptitude test while 80th percentile means that the test taker scored better than 80 percent of the other employees in his or her norm group. This also means that the test taker scored worse than the top 20 percent of test takers. It does not mean the test taker got 80% of the items correct.
Advice for Test Takers
It is common for test takers to experience anxiety or tension while taking a psychometric test. Being able to control and suppress it may help the test taker achieve a good test score. The best way to control anxiety is to know what to expect and be very well prepared for it before taking the test. Some other tips test takers can use so that they can be prepared for an aptitude (reasoning) test are:
- Before taking any type of assessment, be well nourished and get proper rest as doing so will help improve your performance and therefore, your test score.
- Take a couple of deep breaths and try to relax if you’re feeling overly nervous before you start. You can also take a walk to put yourself in a good state of mind.
- Ensure you try as much as possible to stay relaxed during the test. Be aware of any tension in your limbs, neck or shoulders, look around once in a while and take some more deep breaths, and stretch your legs or rest your eyes. Doing this will help to break tension.
- Ensure that the instructions and questions are read carefully and understood so you can answer the right answer to the given question. And finally cross-check your work when you are done to be sure of no mistake.
The minimum scores required may vary depending on the nature of the job and employer-companies. For example, an employer may choose to have candidates sit the whole range of tests, but only require a pass score of 40% for the numerical test and a much higher 80% for the verbal if they feel that verbal comprehension skills are more crucial for the job.
If a perfect aptitude test score is 100% or 100 points, and your score is 80% or above, it is considered a good score. A minimum acceptable score is considered to be from 70% to 80%.
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