How the CCAT works
The CCAT is one timed sitting of 50 multiple-choice questions with a 15-minute limit, which works out at under 20 seconds a question on average. Criteria aims it at mid- to high-level jobs that require problem solving, and says it is especially predictive for managers, software engineers, financial analysts and auditors. It is device-agnostic, so you can take it on a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop, unsupervised and wherever you are.
The questions come from three areas, and Criteria publishes an example of each. A verbal item asks for the word most nearly opposite to LENGTHEN (truncate). A math and logic item gives three numbers with an average of 17, two of them 12 and 19, and asks for the third (20). A spatial item asks which of five shapes does not belong. Criteria does not publish how many questions of each type a test contains.
Each candidate gets a different set of questions. Criteria draws them from a bank of thousands of items, so no two people see exactly the same test.
What Criteria tells candidates to do
Criteria’s own preparation advice is short. The most common mistake, it says, is rushing through the instructions. After that, play to your strengths: the aim is to maximize the number of questions you are likely to get right, not to work through the paper in order.
- Read the instructions properly before the clock matters.
- If you have spent more than a minute on one problem, make an educated guess and move on. That is Criteria’s own rule of thumb.
- Never leave a question blank, because wrong answers cost nothing.
- Practice arithmetic without a calculator, since none is allowed on the day.
- Do not plan to finish. Fewer than 1% of candidates do.
How it is scored
Your raw score is the number of questions you answer correctly, out of 50. Employers see it with a percentile that compares you with Criteria’s norm group, plus separate percentiles for spatial reasoning, verbal ability, and math and logic.
There is no single pass mark. Criteria gives employers suggested score ranges by position, built from large samples of earlier scores, and employers can set their own. In Criteria’s sample report the suggested range for management roles is 20 to 50, and a raw score of 24 sits at the 50th percentile.
The norm group is 106,740 adults, with a median score of 24 and a standard deviation of 7. Criteria reports a reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.86 and a correlation of .78 with the Wonderlic Personnel Test among 34 people who took both. Results are emailed to the employer, and Criteria’s candidate FAQ says its support team has no access to them.
How our practice version works
Our CCAT practice comes as three drills, one per question type: 18 verbal questions, 18 math and logic questions and 14 spatial questions. Each runs at 18 seconds a question, the CCAT’s average pace, so the three together add up to 50 questions in 15 minutes. That split is ours, because Criteria does not publish one, and the real CCAT puts all three types into a single 15-minute sitting, which separate drills cannot rehearse.
Every question has five options, as in Criteria’s published examples, and nothing is deducted for a wrong answer. Questions appear one at a time with no Back button and no calculator. At the end you see your score and where the time went, which the real test does not show you. The verbal drill is free to try.