McKinsey Solve Practice Tests
Solve is McKinsey's own assessment. It is not sold to other employers, so you will only meet it when you apply to McKinsey. Six simulations covering every task in the current lineup.
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Redrock Analysis
Growth rates, ratios, proportions and weighted means from the data you collected, using a calculator that logs every result at full precision so you can reuse it instead of retyping it. The questions chain, so one wrong intermediate poisons everything after it.
Redrock Report
Fill the blanks in a research summary, choose the chart type that fits the data, and populate it. Graded on accuracy, not prose. Choosing a line chart where the data compares categories is a common and entirely avoidable loss.
Redrock Cases
Six independent data mini-cases under one shared clock: word problems, formula identification, verbal reasoning and chart choice. There is no per-case timer, so one case you overrun is paid for by the cases you never reach.
Sea Wolf Ocean Treatment
Clean three contaminated ocean sites, each with exactly three microbes whose average attributes must land inside the site ranges. Efficiency starts at 100% and every violated constraint costs 20. Procedurally generated, so no two runs deal the same microbes, and a perfect treatment is not always available.
Sustainable Futures Lab
Thirteen judgement calls on an environmental project that keeps changing under you, opening with a priority ranking. No arithmetic. Scored against our own expert key across five dimensions, because McKinsey publishes no scoring model for this module.
What Solve looks like right now, and how confident we are
Format last confirmed 12 September 2026McKinsey publishes no module names, durations or scoring model. Its FAQ says only that “the length of your Solve assessment is outlined in your invitation email”. Everything here about named modules comes from dated candidate and coach reports, so your invitation beats us on every detail.
Read your invitation's total time. It is the most reliable signal of which modules you are getting: 65 minutes is Redrock plus Sea Wolf, 85 minutes adds Sustainable Futures Lab. A 95 minute version has been reported since September 2026 and is not yet corroborated.
The real test is desktop only. McKinsey runs it on a PC or Mac, not a phone or an iPad. Our simulations work on a phone because practising on a train beats not practising, but a phone result is not comparable: the real interface drags data across three panels with a mouse.
McKinsey says there is nothing to prepare. That is true about business knowledge and optimistic about the interface, which is what candidates actually lose time to and the only thing practice here fixes.
The three modules, and how our six drills map onto them
Redrock runs its four phases on one shared 35 minute clock, spent flexibly. We split it into four drills with honest individual durations that sum to roughly 35, because the four phases have four completely different interactions and each is introduced by its own untimed tutorial in the real product. That split is our product decision, not a claim about how McKinsey scores the module.
Redrock Study, about 35 minutes
You are a researcher on a fictional island. Investigation: collect the few figures that answer a stated research objective and leave the noise. Analysis: two to four calculations using a calculator that logs every result for reuse. Report: fill the blanks in a summary, choose the chart type, populate it. Then six independent mini-cases under the remaining clock. You can move between Investigation and Analysis, but once the Report begins there is no route back.
Sea Wolf, about 30 minutes
Three contaminated ocean sites, each treated with exactly three microbes. The MEAN of each attribute across your three must land inside the site range, at least one must carry the desired trait, and none may carry the undesired one. Efficiency starts at 100% and each violation costs 20 points. One clock for all three sites, and no returning to a completed one. Some sources report 35 minutes rather than 30.
Sustainable Futures Lab, about 20 minutes
Thirteen questions on a text-based environmental project. The first is a drag-and-drop prioritisation; the rest are multiple choice with paragraph-length options beginning "You suggest..." or "You recommend...". One continuous narrative, so later questions build on earlier context. No arithmetic and no calculator. Rolled out to most offices between March and May 2026.
How Solve is scored, and what is actually known
This is the part of Solve most confidently described online and least actually known. Here is the evidence, separated from the assertion.
Established: process is measured
The one peer-reviewed source, presented at EDM 2018 by Imbellus with a McKinsey co-author, states that scores are derived from telemetry and capture “both their cognitive process and product”, against an ontology of roughly 100 constructs rolled up into five: critical thinking, decision-making, metacognition, situational awareness and systems thinking. On 527 London candidates in 2017 those construct scores correlated 0.43 to 0.71 with passing McKinsey's old paper test. That is good evidence about the original design and says nothing about the modules in rotation today.
Disputed: how much process counts
One major prep site says process scores “appear to have minimal influence”. Another says process and product are weighted roughly equally. Neither offers evidence, and the first concedes elsewhere on its own site that McKinsey “has never explicitly stated the measurement method of these process scores” and that it is working from hypotheses that need verifying. Anyone telling you how to optimise for the process score is guessing.
Absent: any score report
No source describes a candidate ever receiving a score. You learn your result as an interview invitation or a rejection. The sole number the product shows anyone is the Sea Wolf efficiency percentage at each site. The percentiles and metrics on our completion screens are ours, built for practice feedback, and we would rather say that plainly than let you think McKinsey hands you a percentile.
Where our simulations differ from the real thing
Everything can be done by tapping
The real module drags: data into the journal, calculator results into answer fields, figures into the report and its chart, actions into a priority order. Drag events do not exist on a touch screen, so every one of those is tap to pick up and tap to place here, with dragging still available on a desktop. Targets are sized for a thumb. Practising the reasoning on a phone is worth doing; practising the mouse work is not possible anywhere but a desktop.
Four Redrock drills instead of one 35 minute run
You can practise chart selection or data collection on its own, which a single 35 minute run does not let you do. The cost is that you do not feel the whole clock. Sit the four back to back if you want that, and remember the real module lets you move time between phases.
Sea Wolf shows you the running mean
On the final selection screen we show the mean of your three microbes against each range. No source says the real module does this. It is here because the mean is the entire scored quantity, because a ten-microbe table is unreadable on a phone without it, and because the skill being practised is the search and the forward planning rather than averaging three integers in your head.
SFL is scored against our key, not McKinsey’s
No first-party source names Sustainable Futures Lab at all, let alone its scoring or its dimensions. The five dimensions every prep site lists trace back to each other. We wrote an expert key, we score against it, and we say so on the screen as well as here.
Modules you may read about and will probably not sit
Most guides to Solve are older than the current lineup. These are the names that confuse people, and we do not simulate any of them.
Ecosystem Building
You built a food chain on a chosen terrain, satisfying calorie and habitat rules. Described as retired by one source updated in September 2026 and as phasing out since mid 2025 by another; a coach told a candidate in June 2026 that it and Plant Defense "are no longer standard". We deliberately do not build it. If your invitation is unusually long, ask your recruiter.
Plant Defense
The tower-defence style module that Redrock replaced in 2023. Widely written about and no longer in rotation. Practising it is practising a discontinued instrument.
The Problem Solving Test (PST)
A different, older instrument: a paper multiple-choice test that Solve replaced. A candidate told they are sitting "the McKinsey test" who finds PST practice papers is preparing for something that no longer exists.
A longer Sustainable Futures Lab
From September 2026 one vendor and one forum post describe a roughly 30 minute team-management version: four researchers across four workstations over three days, a budget of questions per day, and assessments of researcher wellbeing. The publisher says plainly that McKinsey has released no mechanics or scoring for it. We have not built it, because doing so would mean guessing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is McKinsey Solve?
Solve is McKinsey & Company’s own gamified assessment, sat after the CV screen and before first-round interviews. McKinsey describes it as "a gamified assessment created to showcase your problem-solving abilities". It is not a vendor product and is not licensed to other employers, so you will only ever meet it while applying to McKinsey. It has also been called the McKinsey Digital Assessment, the Problem Solving Game or PSG, and the Imbellus game, after the start-up that built it.
How long is McKinsey Solve?
McKinsey publishes no duration at all: its FAQ says only that "the length of your Solve assessment is outlined in your invitation email". Candidate reports converge on two configurations. A 65 minute invitation is Redrock plus Sea Wolf. An 85 minute invitation is Redrock plus Sea Wolf plus Sustainable Futures Lab. A 95 minute version has been reported since September 2026 and is disputed. Your invitation length is the most reliable signal of which modules you are getting.
What modules does Solve contain in 2026?
Three, as of our last check on 12 September 2026: the Redrock Study, reported at 35 minutes, which contains an Investigation phase, an Analysis phase, a Report phase and six mini-cases; Sea Wolf, also called Ocean Treatment or the Ocean Cleanup, reported at 30 minutes; and Sustainable Futures Lab, reported at 20 minutes and rolled out to most offices between March and May 2026. Ecosystem Building and Plant Defense are legacy modules and are no longer standard.
What is the McKinsey Solve pass rate?
McKinsey publishes nothing. Every figure in circulation comes from a preparation vendor, and the range found across them runs from 10% to 33%, with 20% to 30% the most commonly repeated. Each of those figures sits next to a claim that the same vendor’s preparation raises it, so treat all of them as marketing rather than data. What McKinsey does say is that "the results from Solve will be taken into consideration together with the rest of your application", so it is not a standalone gate.
How is McKinsey Solve scored?
Honestly, nobody outside McKinsey knows for the current modules. The one peer-reviewed source, written by Imbellus with a McKinsey co-author, describes the 2017 and 2018 assessment as deriving scores from telemetry, capturing "both their cognitive process and product", and mapping them onto five constructs. That is strong evidence for the original design and says nothing about the modules in rotation today. Prep vendors contradict each other about how much process counts, and the most specific of them concedes that it is working from unverified hypotheses. The only number the assessment itself shows a candidate is the Sea Wolf efficiency percentage.
Is Sea Wolf’s efficiency percentage the only feedback?
Yes. After you submit a treatment at each of the three sites, the game shows an efficiency percentage on a result screen. No source describes any score report reaching a candidate afterwards: you learn your result as an invitation to interview or as a rejection. That makes Sea Wolf the one module where a practice number can be directly compared with a real one.
Can I take McKinsey Solve on a phone?
No. McKinsey states the assessment is available on a PC or Mac only, not on a phone or an iPad. A tech check runs before it starts, sound is not required and a mouse is optional. Our simulations do run on a phone, because practising on a train is better than not practising, but a phone result is not comparable to a desktop one: the real interface is built around dragging with a mouse across three panels at once.
Can you use a calculator, or pen and paper?
There is an on-screen calculator inside the game, from the Analysis phase onward and almost always in the mini-cases. It does the four operations and percentages, with no exponents, and it logs every result so you can reuse it. Whether blank scratch paper is permitted is genuinely unresolved: McKinsey prohibits "pre-prepared notes", which is not the same thing, and no first-party statement permits or forbids blank paper. Ask your recruiter rather than inferring permission from a prep site.
Is Solve adaptive?
No, not in the psychometric sense, and the distinction matters. McKinsey says Solve "is designed so that no two individuals have the same parameters and combinations of data", which randomises the scenario per candidate. That is not the same as item difficulty responding to your performance, which is what adaptive means for an SHL Verify or an Aon test. The right description is "different parameters for every candidate".
Do BCG and Bain use Solve?
No. Solve is McKinsey’s own instrument and is not licensed to anyone. BCG runs its own assessments and the chatbot-based Casey case simulation; Bain’s online test is reported as Sova. If you are applying to more than one strategy firm, do not assume practice transfers between them.
Who runs Solve
One organisation: McKinsey & Company. Every other assessment on this site is a vendor product sold to many employers, and Solve is the exception. It is not licensed, so there is no list of companies to publish and practice for it does not transfer to anything else.
McKinsey & Company
Solve sits after the CV screen and before first-round interviews, and is reported to go to most candidates who clear the screen. For the pipeline around it, the invitation and scheduling logistics, deadlines and reapplication, read the employer guide.
McKinsey application guideApplying to BCG or Bain as well?
Neither uses Solve. BCG runs its own assessments, including the chatbot-based Casey case simulation, and Bain's online test is reported as Sova. Practice does not transfer between the three firms, so check what each invitation actually names rather than assuming the consulting process is one process.
Compare the assessment providersCan Solve be cheated?
No, and the reason is unusually concrete: no two candidates get the same parameters, and McKinsey reserves the right to ask you at random to sit an extra task in person or explain your logic. There is also a popular shortcut that is a rules breach, which is worth reading about before somebody recommends it to you.
What the rules actually sayPractice by Test Type
Compare the same format across every provider that uses it, and see what each one is really measuring.
Numerical Reasoning Test Practice
Tables, charts, percentages and ratios against the clock. The most common screening test on graduate schemes and analyst roles.
Logical Reasoning Test Practice
Shapes, sequences and flowcharts instead of words or numbers. Inductive, deductive, abstract, diagrammatic and spatial in one place.
Situational Judgement Test Practice
Realistic workplace scenarios scored against an employer competency framework. No maths, no time pressure, and a scoring key you can reason about.
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