Logical and abstract reasoning tests

Although the most popular way to assess whether a candidate is right for a job position is the one-to-one interview, psychometric tests are used by many employers as a filtering mechanism at an early stage of the recruitment process, especially for technical jobs. They are the most common tools used by recruiters to assess intelligence, skills and personality. Psychometric tests help employers to give a better overall evaluation of candidates and get a deeper insight into their personality traits, competencies, style of working and motivations.

Among these tests, the logical reasoning tests and the abstract reasoning tests, are one of the most fearsome. They both have much in common, the former ones assess the ability to use structured thinking, and the second ones, which are closely correlated with the IQ tests, rely upon the ability to see underlying logic in patterns. Both of them also overlap, in some way, inductive and diagrammatic reasoning tests.

Logic is one of the cornerstones of cognitive aptitude, that's why logic and abstract reasoning tests are so important for recruiters. The ability to understand and interpret complicated information is essential not only for jobs that require analysis and problem solving on a daily basis, but for positions where employees have decision making power.

As with any kind of test, you can improve your performance if, beforehand, you know what to expect and you have enough practice. Psychometric Training is, unarguably, one of those tools that will help you to improve you reasoning skills, and overcome most of the logical and abstract reasoning tests applied by recruiters. It not only provides hundreds of free problems to practice, but also useful explanation to help you to understand the logic behind every problem.

Our tests are divided into two main groups, logical/abstract and numerical reasoning, the first one includes the Progressive Matrices Tests and the Abstract Reasoning Tests, while the second one includes the Dominoes Tests, the Tests of Numbers and the Tests of Numerical Sequences. Notice that although dominoes tests uses domino tiles, the logic to find the right answer requires some basic numerical reasoning.

Logical and abstract reasoning tests usually involve one of these five categories:

1. Matrices, which include a group of figures in a matrix structure where the rows and columns follow a certain rule or pattern, and you need to determine what this pattern is to find the missing figure.
2. A row of images, where one of them is missing, and you need to identify the pattern that govern the series to determine the missing image, usually the next in the sequence.
3. Analogies, where from a pair of shapes that share a relationship, you need to figure out which the relationship is in order to apply the same logic to another shape and find its pair.
4. Odd one out, where each problem contains images that follow a particular pattern, except one that does not fit the pattern and you need to identify it.
5. Select the right set, where, given two sets of abstract shapes and some test shapes, you need to determine which set each test shape belongs.

Our progressive matrices tests and abstract reasoning tests cover the three first categories, but right now we don't have problems for the last two ones. As there are many test providers, and each one uses different kind of problems, we are working in new tests to cover all the five categories and provide a very complete tool where applicants can continue practicing and improving their skills.