Criteria (CCAT) Practice Tests
Practice all 7Criteria assessments: the CCAT as its three sections, plus the UCAT, CBST and EPP. Sitting the three sections back to back covers a full paper’s worth of items — 18 + 18 + 14 = 50 — at the real test’s pace of 18 seconds per item, with the same no-penalty scoring.
All Tests
CCAT Math & Logic
Basic algebra, proportions, word problems, number series and logic items from the math and logic third of the CCAT. No calculator, exactly as in the real test - the arithmetic is deliberately doable in your head if you spot the shortcut.
CCAT Spatial Reasoning
Rotate and flip figures mentally, identify the odd one out and complete figure series. The spatial third of the CCAT, and the item type candidates most often skip when they should be guessing.
UCAT (Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test)
Criteria’s language-independent cognitive test: 40 questions in 20 minutes with no verbal items at all, only math, logic and spatial reasoning. Used where candidates are assessed across languages, so a weak-English score cannot be mistaken for weak aptitude.
CBST (Criteria Basic Skills Test)
Workplace literacy and numeracy: spelling, grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, everyday arithmetic and measurement. 40 questions in 20 minutes. Screens for administrative, clerical and customer-facing roles rather than for reasoning ceiling.
EPP (Employee Personality Profile)
Criteria’s untimed personality inventory. Rate how strongly you agree with each statement to produce a profile across twelve workplace traits. There is no score to beat here - consistency matters more than any single answer.
SalesAP (Sales Achievement Predictor)
Criteria’s sales aptitude inventory, measuring the traits interviews hide: comfort cold-calling, willingness to ask for the order, and resilience to rejection. Untimed. It also runs validity checks that catch a profile built to look perfect and quietly adjust it down - so honest answers score better than polished ones.
Why We Practise the CCAT as Its Three Sections
Three sections back to back is a full paper’s worth of items — and a single section is short enough to actually repeat.
The real CCAT is 18 verbal, 18 math and logic and 14 spatial items, 50 in total. Sit our three section drills one after another and you have covered the same 50 items at the same pace. What you gain by splitting them is the ability to repeat the one that is costing you marks: a 5-minute verbal drill you can sit three times in an evening does more for a CCAT score than one 15-minute run you are too drained to repeat, and repetition on your weakest section is what actually moves the number.
The clocks are the real ones. Criteria allows 900 seconds for 50 questions, which is 18 seconds per item, so each drill runs at its item count times 18 seconds: 324 seconds for verbal, 324 for math and logic, 252 for spatial. Nothing is slowed down to make practice comfortable.
One honest caveat: the real test interleaves the three types rather than grouping them, so a section drill cannot rehearse the constant switching between words, numbers and shapes. Sitting the three back to back in one block restores the volume and the pace, and the switching is the part that costs you least once each section itself is fast.
The One Thing That Makes the CCAT Different
There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so a blank is the only answer that cannot score.
Criteria scores the CCAT on the number of questions you got right and nothing else. Wrong answers cost you nothing beyond the time they took, which is why Criteria’s own advice to candidates is to guess and move on. On a five-option item a blind guess is worth 0.2 marks in expectation; a blank is worth exactly zero, every time.
Now put that next to the clock. Fifty questions in fifteen minutes is roughly 18 seconds each, including reading the question. The average test taker gets 24 right and fewer than 1% of candidates answer all 50 - so “finish the paper” is not the goal, and treating it as one is how candidates who could have scored well end up stranded on question 31 with four minutes gone.
The real skill is triage. Recognise within a few seconds that an item will not resolve quickly, guess it, and put the seconds you saved into items you can actually get right. That is a habit you can practise directly: our section drills run at the real 18 seconds per item and report how long you spent on the items you got wrong, so you can see where the time went.
If you are also preparing for an Aon cut-e test, the correct strategy is reversed
The CCAT and the Aon cut-e tests are mirror images of each other. Aon deducts a mark for a wrong answer and nothing for a blank, so a blind guess has a negative expected value and skipping is correct. Criteria deducts nothing, so skipping is strictly worse than guessing and leaving an item blank is the one move with no upside.
Both tests are short, both contain more items than nearly anyone finishes, and both reward fast judgement about your own certainty. They just cash that judgement out in opposite directions: on Aon it tells you when to stay silent, on the CCAT it tells you when to commit to a guess and move on.
Who is Criteria?
A US publisher with one flagship test
Criteria Corp is a US pre-employment assessment publisher, and the CCAT is its best-known product. Alongside it Criteria publishes the UCAT, a language-independent cognitive test, the CBST basic skills test and the EPP personality questionnaire.
Three question types, interleaved
Verbal, math and logic, and spatial items are mixed together rather than grouped into sections, so you switch modes constantly and cannot pace yourself section by section. No calculators are allowed.
Common in US tech and private equity hiring
Crossover documents the CCAT publicly on its own selection-process page, and it is well established at Vista Equity Partners and its portfolio companies, including TIBCO and PowerSchool. Private equity firms use it heavily for portfolio-company hiring, and it is common for tech, sales and mid-to-senior roles.
Sent Cognify or Emotify? That is Criteria too, but it is a different product
Criteria Corp also owns Revelian, whose game-based Cognify assessment and Emotify emotional-intelligence test are a separate line from the CCAT: mini-games rather than multiple-choice items, and scored differently. So an invitation can carry the Criteria name and still not be a CCAT. If yours names Cognify or Emotify, practise on our Revelian Cognify tests instead - you are not in the wrong place, just one page over.
What Each Test Measures
The three CCAT sections add up to a full 50-item paper (18 + 18 + 14) and each runs at 18 seconds per item, the real test’s pace. CCAT Verbal is free; the rest are unlocked together.
CCAT Verbal
18 questions · 5-6 min · freeWord meaning, antonyms and synonyms, analogies, and the role context plays in word choice. The verbal third of the CCAT, and the one section here you can sit without unlocking anything. Analogies are where the time goes: naming the relationship between the first pair in words before you look at the options is faster than testing each option against the pair, and it stops a near-miss option from looking right.
CCAT Math & Logic
18 questions · 5-6 minBasic algebra, proportions, word problems and number series, all built so no calculator is needed. The difficulty is setting the problem up quickly rather than computing it, so the arithmetic that pays to have automatic is the everyday kind: fractions to percentages, ratios, and the times tables you would otherwise reach for a calculator to confirm.
CCAT Spatial Reasoning
14 questions · 4-5 minRotating or flipping figures mentally, recognising patterns, and identifying the odd one out. Checking one property at a time across all the figures - count, then orientation, then shading - is more reliable under time pressure than studying each figure in turn, because it turns a mental-rotation problem into a comparison problem.
UCAT (Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test)
40 questions · 20 min · no verbal itemsCriteria's language-independent cognitive test: math and logic and spatial reasoning only, with the verbal items removed so candidates can be compared across languages. The longer per-item allowance than the CCAT is not generosity - the items that remain are the ones you cannot skim.
CBST (Criteria Basic Skills Test)
40 questions · 20 minCriteria's basic skills measure, covering the everyday literacy and numeracy an entry-level or administrative role actually uses. Different purpose from the CCAT: this is a floor check on accuracy with routine material rather than a measure of how quickly you learn.
EPP (Employee Personality Profile)
untimed · 15-20 minCriteria's personality questionnaire, and the one assessment here with no right answers. There is nothing to revise, so the value of practice is only familiarity with the format and the length: it is untimed and runs 15 to 20 minutes, long enough that candidates start second-guessing themselves halfway through, which is precisely what produces an inconsistent profile.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CCAT?
The Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test, published by Criteria Corp: 50 questions in 15 minutes, with verbal, math and logic, and spatial reasoning items interleaved rather than grouped into sections. No calculators are allowed. Employers receive your raw score - the number you got right - together with your percentile.
Should I guess on the CCAT?
Yes. There is no penalty for a wrong answer and Criteria itself tells candidates to guess and move on. A blank scores zero with certainty, while a guess on a five-option item is worth 0.2 marks in expectation. Never leave an item unanswered.
What is a good CCAT score?
The average test taker gets 24 of 50 right, so 24 is the reference point rather than a target. Employers set their own thresholds by role and see your percentile alongside the raw score, so there is no single pass mark published for the test.
Is it bad that I did not finish?
No - fewer than 1% of candidates answer all 50 questions. The test is built to be unfinishable, which is why the score that matters is how many marks you banked, not how far through you got.
How much time do I get per question?
About 18 seconds, if you spread 15 minutes evenly across 50 questions. In practice you should not spread it evenly: bank the items you can read and resolve quickly, guess the ones you cannot, and let the saved seconds go to items where the extra thinking actually converts into a mark.
Can I practise the full 50 questions in one sitting?
Yes - sit the three CCAT sections back to back. 18 verbal plus 18 math and logic plus 14 spatial is 50 items, and each section drill is clocked at the real 18 seconds per item, so the three together run the full 15 minutes. We publish them as sections because a five-minute section is short enough to sit again tonight, and repeating your weakest section is what moves the score. The one thing a section cannot rehearse is the interleaving, since the real test mixes the types rather than grouping them.
Which of these tests is free?
CCAT Verbal. The other five - CCAT Math & Logic, CCAT Spatial Reasoning, the UCAT, the CBST and the EPP - are paid and unlock together.
Can I use a calculator?
No. The math and logic items are designed so that none is needed - basic algebra, proportions, word problems and number series. Practising mental arithmetic is worth more here than revising advanced maths.
Which employers use the CCAT?
Crossover documents it publicly on its own selection-process page, and it is well established at Vista Equity Partners and its portfolio companies including TIBCO and PowerSchool. Private equity firms use it heavily when hiring into portfolio companies, and it is common in US tech, sales and mid-to-senior roles. Employers change vendors, so confirm what your invitation names.
What else does Criteria publish?
The UCAT (Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test), a language-independent cognitive test with no verbal items; the CBST (Criteria Basic Skills Test); and the EPP (Employee Personality Profile). Criteria also owns Revelian, whose Cognify and Emotify games we cover separately.
My invitation says Cognify. Am I on the right page?
Not quite. Cognify and Emotify come from Revelian, which Criteria owns, but they are game-based assessments rather than the multiple-choice CCAT. Practise those on our Revelian Cognify page instead.
Companies That Use Criteria (CCAT)
The CCAT is one of the most widely used pre-hire cognitive tests in the United States. It is especially common in private equity portfolio-company hiring and in technology and sales roles, where employers want a fast, standardised read on learning speed across a very large applicant pool.
Crossover
Remote Work MarketplaceDocuments a 15-minute CCAT on its own selection-process page, used to shortlist because every role attracts thousands of global applicants.
View Crossover guide →Vista Equity Partners
Private EquityWidely reported to use the CCAT both for its own investment and operations hiring and across its portfolio companies.
View Vista Equity Partners guide →TIBCO
Enterprise SoftwareReported to screen technical and commercial candidates with the CCAT, consistent with its Vista Equity ownership.
View TIBCO guide →PowerSchool
Education SoftwareReported to use the CCAT to screen for candidates who handle logical and numerical problems quickly.
View PowerSchool guide →Criteria Corp
Assessment PublisherPublishes the CCAT, UCAT, CBST and EPP, and documents the CCAT format and scoring publicly for candidates.
Criteria Corp also owns Revelian, whose Cognify and Emotify games are covered separately on this site. The CCAT, UCAT, CBST and EPP are different products from Cognify, so check which one your invitation actually names. Employers also set their own score cutoffs, which vary by role family and are rarely published.
Ready to Start Practising?
Sign up to unlock all 7 Criteria practice tests with full scoring, percentile feedback, and a per-item timing breakdown so you can see which questions ate the clock.
CogniPrep is an independent practice platform and is not affiliated with, authorised by or endorsed by Criteria Corp. Criteria, CCAT, UCAT, CBST and EPP are trademarks of Criteria Corp and are used here for identification only. All tests on this page are independent simulations written to reflect the published format and timing of the real assessments; they are not copies of them and contain no live test content.