Numerical reasoning test: formats and practice

A numerical reasoning test shows you a table or a chart and asks a question you can only answer by finding the right figures and doing a calculation or two. The math rarely goes beyond percentages, ratios and averages. The clock is what makes it hard. This guide covers the formats you are likely to meet, the math worth brushing up on and how to practice for free.

What a numerical reasoning test measures

Employers use numerical tests to see how well you draw conclusions from figures you have never seen before. You are not tested on algebra or formulas from school. A typical task shows sales by office, costs by department or visitors by year, and asks which office grew the most or what share of the total one department spent.

Most tasks need one to three steps. Reading a single value off a table is one step. A percentage change is two. Comparing how a share changed between two years can take three, and that is where it gets easy to pick the right figures and divide by the wrong base.

The SHL numerical reasoning test

SHL tests numerical reasoning in two products. Verify Interactive G+ is a combined test of 36 minutes with at most 24 questions. It covers deductive, inductive and numerical reasoning and gives you a score for each. Verify Interactive Numerical is the standalone version, with 18 minutes and at most 10 questions.

Both are interactive. Instead of choosing one of five answers, you create or adjust charts and fill in spreadsheets from the information on the screen. A task might give you a total and a few relations, such as “twice as many as” or “10 fewer than”, and ask you to set a chart so that it matches. That takes a few tasks to get used to, so try SHL’s own free practice tests before the real one. SHL also has numerical practice tests in a standard multiple-choice version. Our guide to the SHL test covers the whole of Verify G+.

Aon scales numerical

Aon, formerly cut-e, has a numerical subtest called scales numerical: 37 tasks in 12 minutes, which leaves you less than 20 seconds per task. Each task is one statement about a data sheet, such as a table of costs by year or a chart of revenue by product. You answer True, False or Cannot say. Aon says you are not expected to answer every statement in the time, only to work quickly and accurately, and it recommends having pen, paper and a calculator ready.

Cannot say needs the most care. It is only right when the data sheet lacks what the statement needs, for example a year that is not in the table or a breakdown the table never gives. If the answer can be worked out from the table, the statement is true or false, even when the calculation is awkward. The Aon test guide goes through the other subtests.

The math worth brushing up on

You need very little math, but you need to do it fast:

• Percentage change: the new value minus the old, divided by the old value. Divide by the old value, not the new one.
• Share of a total: one row divided by the sum of all rows, including that row.
• Percent versus percentage points: a share that goes from 20% to 25% has risen by 5 percentage points, which is an increase of 25%.
• Averages: add up the values and divide by how many there are.
• Ratios: one row divided by another, such as revenue per employee.

The wrong options in our tasks are built from the mistakes that are easiest to make. They come from the right method applied to the wrong row, year or base, a forgotten step, or percent mixed up with percentage points. If an option matches your first quick estimate, check which base you used before you click.

How to practice for a numerical test

Practice helps, up to a point. A meta-analysis of 50 studies found that scores on ability tests rose by 0.26 standard deviations on average the second time people took a test, with larger gains when the format was the same. Most of what you gain is familiarity with the format and the pace.

• Start with the free practice material from SHL and Aon, so you see their formats first hand.
• Read the question before the table, then look only for the figures it needs.
• Write down intermediate results instead of keeping them in your head.
• Practice with a time limit. Knowing the method does not help much if each task takes three minutes.
• After each round, go through the tasks you missed and find the exact step that went wrong.

Our free numerical reasoning test has 12 tasks with tables and bar charts, five answer options and a clock for each task. It starts with one-step questions and ends with three-step calculations, and afterward you see the working for every task. For the formats above, there is an Aon scales numerical practice test with 37 True, False or Cannot say statements in 12 minutes, and an SHL practice test where you adjust charts as in Verify G+. Everything is free, you need no account and you get new tasks every time.

Our tasks are our own and only mimic the task types. They are not SHL’s or Aon’s, and we are not connected to either company.