How gridChallenge works
Aon lists gridChallenge as a working memory test: nine tasks of varying difficulty in nine minutes, measuring your ability to keep something in mind while trying to process other information at the same time.
Aon’s candidate page does not describe the screens. A model card that the American Civil Liberties Union compiled from Aon’s own documentation in October 2024 fills some of that in: you memorise the location and order of highlighted circles or arrows in a short time, and between seeing and recalling them you complete distractor tasks, such as deciding whether a pattern is symmetrical. It describes the format as fast-paced mini games.
Where it comes from and how employers use it
The same model card records gridChallenge as version 3.0, developed from an earlier Aon working memory assessment called GAME, and quotes Aon describing it as suited to early screening, before more resource-intensive stages such as CV review and interviews.
Scores run from 0 to 100, with higher scores better, and the card notes Aon material saying that cut-off scores are often used with ability tests like this one, and that several ability tests are often used together in one hiring process.
How to approach it
The distractor is part of the test, not a break from it. Give each one a real answer, then turn straight back to the sequence you are holding. Order counts as well as position, so hold the sequence in the order it appeared, not just the set of places that lit up.
How it is scored
Aon’s candidate page gives no rule specific to gridChallenge. The ACLU model card reports a 0 to 100 scale, and Aon’s general statement for performance tests is that points are usually added for correct answers and deducted for incorrect ones.
How our practice version works
Our gridChallenge practice is our own reconstruction from these public descriptions. Cells on a 4x4 grid light up one at a time for 0.7 seconds each, and you tap them back in the same order, which counts. Between memory rounds you judge whether a pattern is symmetrical, with five seconds to answer.
Sequences start at three cells and move up or down by one with your answers, to a maximum of nine. The whole session lasts six minutes, shorter than the nine Aon lists, and our score weights recall above the symmetry checks and reports the longest sequence you recalled correctly.