Civil Service Online Tests: What Each of the Eight Is Really Testing

The Civil Service runs eight online tests through Civil Service Jobs, and it publishes more about how they work than almost any commercial test vendor. The Cabinet Office writes the content, Talogy supplies the platform, and the guidance pages for each test tell you most of what you need. What they do not do is tell you what the design means for your preparation. That is what this guide is for.

Start with the advert, not the test list

No test is compulsory for any grade. Recruiters choose which tests a vacancy uses, at their own discretion, so the job advert is the only reliable statement of what you will sit. The range is:

Tests come in groups, and a recruiter sets the order of the groups, so you might sit Work Strengths and the Styles Assessment before the Verbal Test. Every test opens with practice questions that do not count.

The Verbal and Numerical tests stop when they know your level

Both are adaptive. The Cabinet Office's transparency record describes the design: your ability estimate starts at the average, every question is chosen as one of the most informative for your current estimate, and the test stops once the estimate is precise enough or a maximum is reached. So the length varies, and there is no question counter to pace yourself against.

Three habits follow from that design:

• Take your time. The tests are untimed, and the guidance says how long you take does not affect your score. Most people take 15 to 45 minutes. A fast wrong answer is the most expensive thing you can do.
• Answer every question as if it counts. Some are unscored trial items being calibrated, and you cannot tell which. You cannot skip, and you cannot go back.
• On the Verbal Test, find the proving sentence. The instruction on the real screen is to answer using information in the passage only. If you cannot point to the sentence that makes a statement True or False, it is Cannot say, however true it is in the real world.

On the Numerical Test a calculator is allowed and the Civil Service suggests having one, with rough paper, to hand. Read the one-line description above the table first, because units such as "in thousands" often live only there.

The judgement tests have a rating scale with no middle

The Judgement Test, Work Strengths and both skills tests ask you to rate actions as Counterproductive, Ineffective, Fairly Effective or Effective. Two labels are bad and two are good, and there is no neutral point. Decide which side an action is on first, then how far. Several actions in one scenario can share a rating, and there need not be one right answer.

The Judgement Test is built from the behaviours on your advert, three scenarios each, at your job level. Read the Success Profiles description of each behaviour at your grade before you sit it: the keyed answers follow those descriptions. Its self-assessment section is worth 15% of the score, and the Civil Service warns you may be asked about it at interview, so answer it as you actually work. A Judgement Test score cannot be banked, because each job picks different behaviours.

The Management Judgement Test asks for the action you would be most likely and least likely to take. "Likely" is still judged on what works, so choose what a good manager would do, even when it is the less comfortable option.

The Styles Assessment checks how you answer, not just what

The newest test is 276 pairs of statements with a five-point scale between each pair: which statement is more like you, and by how much. Every statement describes something good, so you are choosing which is more typical of you rather than which is better. It is the only Civil Service test that lets you go back until you submit.

The pass mark is not published, and cannot be

Every result is a percentile against other applicants. Below a system-set minimum for your grade you are rejected automatically, and after the deadline the recruiter can raise the pass mark for the job, taking into account the number of applicants and the impact on protected groups. Neither number is published, so any figure you read on a prep site is a guess. Passing scores on the Verbal, Numerical, Work Strengths, Styles and Customer Service tests are banked for six months at the same grade grouping, so one good sitting can cover several applications.

Hiring managers can also ask candidates invited to interview to sit any test again under supervision, which is one of the reasons a shortcut on these tests does not work.

If you are applying to the Fast Stream

The Fast Stream uses its own tests, not these eight. See our guide to the Fast Stream assessment stages instead.

You can practise all eight tests at our Civil Service hub, including the Verbal and Numerical tests built to the Cabinet Office's published adaptive algorithm and the full 276-pair Styles Assessment.