How the Equalture Racer game works
You control a car on a road with several lanes and your goal is the finish line in the shortest time. The only decision you make is which lane to drive in. Equalture does not publish the number of lanes, the length of the race or what makes one lane faster than another.
The game measures cognitive flexibility, which Equalture describes as how you deal with unexpected challenges. A race only tests that if the best choice changes while you drive, so go in expecting the lane that works now to stop working later. The result is a reading between routined, someone who keeps to what worked, and flexible, someone who changes course quickly.
The Racer is one of several games the employer can choose from. Equalture says a full session takes 15 to 45 minutes, depending on how many games the employer picked.
How to approach the Racer
A flexibility game rewards noticing change early and acting on it once. In practice:
- Find the signal that tells you how fast you are going and keep your eyes on it, not on the scenery.
- Give a new lane a moment before you judge it, rather than flicking straight past it.
- Once you are in the best lane, stay there. Changing for no reason costs time.
- The moment your speed falls while you have not moved, treat it as a change and start searching. Waiting to see if it recovers is what a routined reading is made of.
- Search methodically, one lane at a time, so you do not test the same lane twice.
Worked example
Say you are in the second lane at your top speed. Twenty seconds in, the speed starts to drop although you have not touched anything. That drop is the change. Move one lane to the right and hold it for a second: the speed keeps falling, so this is not it. Move to the far right lane: the speed climbs back to the top. Stop there and stay until the speed falls again.
The candidate who loses time here is the one who sat in the second lane for ten seconds hoping the speed would come back, or who kept weaving after finding the fast lane.
Tips for the real Racer game
- Read the instruction screens slowly. They are the only official description of the controls you will get.
- Play on the device you are most at ease with. If you use a phone, hold it the way the game asks and sit somewhere steady.
- Play when you are fresh and can watch the screen without interruption.
- Do not try to guess what the employer wants. The benchmark comes from its own staff, and a team often needs people at both ends of this reading.
Practise the Equalture Racer on CogniPrep
Lane Switch is our own design that trains the same skill. Our road has four lanes over 4,000 metres. One lane runs at 180 km/h and the others are slower, and the fast lane moves to a different lane every 9 to 15 seconds with no warning except the speed readout. Change lane with the arrow keys or the Left and Right buttons. The race stops at 2 minutes 30 seconds. We score the share of time you spend in the fastest lane after it first moves, and show your finish time. Lane Switch is free with a free account.