How the Basic Office Skills test works
Basic Office Skills is one of the Prove It skills tests that Kenexa, then IBM, sold to employers for clerical and administrative roles. SHL bought the rights to the IBM tests and now delivers them unchanged, and still lists Basic Office Skills variants such as Basic Office Skills [No Verbal].
It is a multiple-choice test of everyday office language and maths. The [No Verbal] version keeps only the maths: basic sums such as adding numbers and subtracting fractions, and business word problems. A [No Math] version drops the maths instead, and there are UK, Australian and other local editions.
Prove It tests are reported as untimed, with a basic test taking about 15 to 30 minutes. The report the employer sees gives an overall percentage, how you answered each item, the time spent per item, and your results by topic and by level: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.
How to approach the test
Because it is untimed, accuracy is what counts:
- Read every option before choosing. Spelling and grammar distractors are near misses.
- Work arithmetic on paper or a calculator if allowed, and check the units of your answer.
- Do not rush the easy questions. Results are reported by level, so slips on Basic items stand out.
- Keep a steady pace. You are not timed out, but time per question is reported.
Worked examples
These are our own questions in the style of a basic skills test. Spelling: which is correct? A. accomodate, B. accommodate, C. acommodate, D. acomodate. The answer is B: double c and double m.
Office maths: pens cost £4.20 a box. How much do 15 boxes cost? 15 × £4.20 = £63.00.
Grammar: which sentence is correct? A. Each of the reports have been checked. B. Each of the reports has been checked. The answer is B: the subject is “each”, which is singular, so the verb is “has”.
Tips for the real Basic Office Skills test
- Check your invitation for the variant. A [No Math] or [No Verbal] version changes what to revise.
- Revise commonly misspelt words, apostrophes and subject-verb agreement.
- Practise percentages, fractions and simple business word problems without rushing.
- Take the test somewhere quiet with time to spare. Untimed does not mean unrecorded.
- Aim high. No pass mark is published, and employers set their own.
Practise Basic Office Skills on CogniPrep
Ours gives you 40 multiple-choice questions drawn from a bank of 72, mixed across spelling, grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, arithmetic and filing, each labelled with its subject and tagged Basic, Intermediate or Advanced. There is no time limit; a stopwatch counts up instead. A Skip button exists but a skipped question scores nothing, and there is no Back. Your report shows the percentage correct, results by topic and by level, and your pace, with a score out of 100 and a percentile against CogniPrep players. The question count is ours, because none is published.