How Elements Logical works
Each question shows a series of symbols with one gap. Your task is to identify the missing symbol from a number of alternatives. Talent Q’s guide is precise about the layout: “The symbols have no meaning, but the series always follows a logical sequence, both from left to right and from top to bottom.” So the series is laid out in two directions, and the missing symbol has to fit both.
Korn Ferry’s current candidate page describes the same task in plainer words: you are shown sets of symbols with missing elements and decide what completes each sequence. It says the test measures your ability to see patterns and themes.
Unlike the verbal and numerical tests, there is no longer clock for a first question: every question gets the same 75 seconds. If it runs out the test moves to the next series, and you cannot return.
How to approach a series
Because the series runs across and down, a rule that explains one row is only half an answer. Work out what changes from left to right, then what changes from top to bottom, and only then decide what the gap needs.
- Look at one feature at a time: count, shape, position, shading, rotation.
- Check your rule against every row and column it touches, not just the ones next to the gap.
- Picture the missing symbol before reading the alternatives.
- With 75 seconds and no review, select your best candidate early; a selected answer is submitted if time runs out.
How it is scored
As with the other Elements tests, Talent Q based the score on how difficult each question was and whether you answered it correctly, then compared it with a norm group to give a percentile. Employers could choose which norm group to use, and Talent Q noted that its composite group, everyone in its database, was increasingly the preferred choice.
Employers set their own cut-off for each test. Where a candidate also completed Dimensions, Talent Q’s personality questionnaire, Elements results could go into a combined report. No pass mark is published, and you should get feedback from the employer or recruiter; Korn Ferry encourages candidates to ask for it if it is not offered.
How our practice version works
Our Elements Logical game shares the real test’s 12 questions, its 75-second clock per question and its question-by-question routing: a correct answer moves you up one of three difficulty levels and a wrong or timed-out answer moves you down, starting from the middle. Questions come from a pool of 40 sequences, with six answer options lettered A to F.
The layout is simpler than Korn Ferry’s. We show a single row of four frames and ask which frame comes next, so you practise finding a rule in one direction, not across and down a grid. Treat it as rule-spotting practice under the real clock, and use Korn Ferry’s free logical practice test to see the grid itself. Our score out of 100 is our own, not a Korn Ferry percentile.