Thomas International Practice Tests
Thomas sends four very different instruments and calls each of them two different things. Practise the GIA speed battery as five separate drills or one full run, plus the PPA behaviour profile, the HPTI personality inventory and the TEIQue emotional intelligence questionnaire.
Free Test
Free to try with a free account. Perceptual Speed is the shortest task in the GIA and the one where most candidates lose marks without noticing.
Premium Tests
The five GIA tasks are separately normed on a real Thomas report, with their own percentile and their own penalty for a wrong answer, which is why they are five drills here rather than one. Sit the full battery when you want the thing that actually makes the GIA hard, which is holding the pace across five different task types in one go.
GIA Reasoning
Read a comparison statement, click to hide it, then answer a question about it from memory against two options. The hidden statement is what makes this a working-memory task rather than a reading one.
GIA Number Speed & Accuracy
Three numbers appear. Find the highest and the lowest, decide which of the two is further from the third, and click it. Mental arithmetic only, no calculator.
GIA Word Meaning
Three words, two of them related by similar or opposite meaning. Click the odd one out. The only GIA task whose items cannot be generated from a rule.
GIA Spatial Visualisation
Each box holds two symbols. Count how many boxes hold a rotated copy rather than a mirror image, and click that number. Extra speed here buys nothing if it costs errors.
GIA Full Battery
All five GIA tasks back to back in Thomas’s fixed order, each with its own clock, ending in an overall result. The cumulative pacing is the real difficulty and no drill reproduces it.
Behaviour Profile (PPA)
Twenty-four sets of four adjectives. Pick the one most like you and the one least like you, producing the three DISC graphs Thomas reports. No right answers and no pass mark.
Personality Profile (HPTI)
Seventy-eight statements rated 1 to 7 across six workplace traits. Thomas reads high scores as potential derailers as well as strengths, so there is no end of the scale to aim for.
Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue)
Trait emotional intelligence statements rated 1 to 7, scored across fifteen facets and four factors. A shortened form of a 153-item instrument, built to the same structure.
Your invitation email may use either name
Thomas renamed its instruments to plain-English product names but kept the legacy acronyms in candidate-facing material, so both are live at once. Its own 2024 science papers pair them up.
Thomas Aptitude assessment
also called General Intelligence Assessment (GIA)
Five timed speed tasks. The only one of the four with right answers.
Thomas Behaviour assessment
also called Personal Profile Analysis (PPA)
Twenty-four sets of four adjectives, most and least like you. No marks.
Thomas Personality assessment
also called High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI)
Seventy-eight statements rated 1 to 7 across six workplace traits.
Thomas Emotional Intelligence assessment
also called TEIQue
A 153-item trait emotional intelligence questionnaire, usually for leadership roles.
The real GIA does not run on a phone
Thomas tells candidates to use a desktop computer or laptop because the assessment will not run on mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones, and its candidate booklet goes further: attach a real mouse if you normally use one rather than a trackpad, and tell the invigilator if you are left-handed in case the mouse buttons need reversing. The test may also ask for your screen size so that the tasks render at a consistent scale.
Our GIA drills do work on a phone, with deliberately oversized targets, because revising on a train is better than not revising. But a phone result here is not comparable with Thomas’s norms. On a test scored in units of about two seconds an item, a target that is slightly too small stops measuring reasoning and starts measuring thumbs. Sit your last few practice runs the way you will sit the real one: laptop, mouse, one window, nothing else open.
The PPA, HPTI and TEIQue are different. Thomas advertises the PPA as completable on any device and says the HPTI is delivered on computers, tablets or mobile phones, so a phone is genuinely fine for those three.
How the GIA is marked, and what it means for guessing
A Thomas GIA report prints Done, Right, Wrong and an Adjusted Score for each task. The adjusted score is your right answers minus your wrong answers divided by one less than the number of answer options, and that formula reproduces the printed figure on every row of two independent Thomas sample reports. Unanswered items cost nothing, which means the penalty is set so that blind guessing is worth exactly zero on average.
Reasoning
2 options · a wrong answer costs 1 markWhat moves your score: How many items you get through. Being careful and slow is punished here.
Perceptual Speed
5 options · a wrong answer costs 0.25 marksWhat moves your score: Your error rate. Everyone works at roughly the same speed on this one, so slowing very slightly is what raises it.
Number Speed & Accuracy
3 options · a wrong answer costs 0.5 marksWhat moves your score: Both, roughly evenly. The one task in the battery where the two are balanced.
Word Meaning
3 options · a wrong answer costs 0.5 marksWhat moves your score: Mostly throughput, so do not linger on a word you do not know. Move on.
Spatial Visualisation
3 options · a wrong answer costs 0.5 marksWhat moves your score: Accuracy. Extra speed bought with errors scores worse than going slower: in the sample reports, 18 items with four wrong scored below 14 items with one wrong.
Those last two columns are not a general rule of thumb. They come out of the two published Thomas sample reports: on Perceptual Speed one candidate reached 54 items and landed at the 24th percentile while the other reached 56 and landed at the 54th, and the whole difference was errors. On Reasoning the reverse happened: 38 items at perfect accuracy was the 44th percentile and 53 items at 98% was the 93rd.
Timing, and what is not published
What Thomas actually says
One figure only: each task lasts between two and five minutes, with the whole series taking 30 to 45 minutes including instructions and practice items. Thomas publishes no per-task clock and no per-task item count.
What we use, and why we flag it
Our drills run 5, 2, 2, 3 and 2 minutes, which is the only specific set of clocks published anywhere and it comes from preparation sites rather than from Thomas. It fits Thomas’s own two-to-five-minute band, but it totals 14 minutes against a widely repeated 20-minute figure that also fits. Neither can be ruled out.
What the pacing feels like
Wildly different per task. The sample reports work out at about two seconds an item on Perceptual Speed, around six on Reasoning for a strong candidate, and seven or more on Number Speed and Spatial. Practising all five as one battery is the only way to rehearse switching between those rhythms.
Where you are likely to meet it
Mostly mid-market, and mostly the PPA
Thomas positions itself as size-agnostic and says it supports over 32,000 companies with more than 1.5 million assessments a year, but its published customer book skews to employers of 50 to 500 people. Across the 21 first-party case studies we read, the Behaviour assessment appears in 20 and the GIA in 9, so the odds are that a Thomas invitation is a PPA.
But graduate schemes do use the GIA
Crown’s international graduate programme received over a thousand applications and used the GIA to cut to the top half before interview. Mintek uses the GIA and PPA for graduate recruitment at scale, and ACG uses the GIA when hiring graduates. It is a smaller graduate presence than SHL’s, not an absent one.
A real Dutch market
Seven of the 21 case studies are Dutch, Thomas runs a Dutch-language site, and Dutch and Belgian Dutch are both selectable in the live assessment portal. Several of those customers are recruitment agencies, so in the Netherlands you may well meet Thomas through an agency rather than through the employer itself.
GIA early, PPA late
The case studies describe a consistent ordering: the GIA sits immediately after screening questions as a sift, and the PPA sits after interviews as a fit and interview-structuring input. That is unusual and useful to know, because it means a PPA invitation is a sign you are past the cut rather than another hurdle.
One Thomas product we do not simulate
Around 2025 Thomas launched a second, shorter emotional intelligence measure alongside TEIQue, sold inside its Assess platform. It takes under about eight minutes and adds a trait Thomas calls open-mindedness. Thomas publishes no item count, no full dimension list and no response format for it, so building a practice version would mean inventing the instrument rather than simulating it. If your invitation names an Emotional Intelligence assessment inside Thomas Assess rather than TEIQue, that is the one, and our TEIQue practice will familiarise you with the response format but not with its specific scales.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Thomas GIA test?
The General Intelligence Assessment, which Thomas now also calls the Aptitude assessment. It is a battery of five short timed tasks: Reasoning, Perceptual Speed, Number Speed and Accuracy, Word Meaning, and Spatial Visualisation, always in that order. Each task carries its own instructions, eight practice items and its own clock. Thomas says each task lasts between two and five minutes and the whole series takes 30 to 45 minutes including instructions.
How many questions are in the Thomas GIA?
There is no fixed number, and this is the single most misunderstood thing about the test. Thomas publishes no per-task item count; you answer as many items as you can before each clock runs out. Prep sites quote figures from 130 to 160 for the whole battery, but two published Thomas sample reports show candidates completing 178 and 168 items, so those figures describe an average candidate rather than a limit. Our version streams items the same way, so you can never run out.
Are wrong answers penalised on the Thomas GIA?
Yes, and the penalty is different on each task. The adjusted score on a real Thomas report is your right answers minus your wrong answers divided by one less than the number of options. That is one full mark per error on Reasoning, which has two options, a quarter of a mark on Perceptual Speed, which has five, and half a mark on the other three. Unanswered items cost nothing. The penalty is calibrated so blind guessing is worth zero on average, so guess only once you have ruled an option out.
What is the GTI on a Thomas GIA report?
The General Trainability Index, the single overall number Thomas prints on the profile chart. It is a T-score, meaning it has a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, so a GTI of 60 is roughly the 84th percentile rather than "just over half marks". Thomas describes the overall as a weighted combination of the five tasks but does not publish the weights, so our overall is an unweighted average and we say so rather than inventing them.
Can I take the Thomas GIA on my phone?
Not the real one. Thomas tells candidates to use a desktop computer or laptop because the assessment will not run on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, and it recommends a proper mouse rather than a trackpad. Our practice version does work on a phone, with deliberately oversized targets, because revising on a train is better than not revising. Treat a phone result as familiarisation rather than as a score comparable with Thomas’s norms.
Can you fail the Thomas PPA?
No. Thomas states it directly to candidates: there is no correct behavioural style, the assessment measures your natural preferences, and you cannot pass or fail. The output is three DISC graphs rather than a score. The same is true of the HPTI and TEIQue, both of which Thomas describes as having no right or wrong answers.
Which Thomas assessment am I most likely to be sent?
The Behaviour assessment, also called the PPA. It appears in 20 of the 21 Thomas customer case studies we read, against 9 for the GIA. It is also usually sent late in a process: Thomas customers describe using the GIA early as a sift and the PPA after interviews to structure the conversation. If you have been sent a PPA, you are probably past the first cut.
Is the Thomas GIA adaptive?
No. Item difficulty does not adapt to your answers and there are no level-banded versions: a Dutch source states that all education levels sit the same test, which is why processing speed matters so much. The items are generated by algorithm rather than drawn from a fixed paper, a design the GIA inherits from the British Army Recruit Battery it descends from.
Companies That Use Thomas International
Thomas has the richest first-party evidence of any provider on this site: every company below appears in a Thomas case study that names the specific instruments it uses. The pattern across those case studies is worth knowing before you prepare. The Behaviour assessment (PPA) appears in almost all of them and the Aptitude assessment (GIA) in under half, so if you are invited to one Thomas assessment it is most likely the PPA. The customer base skews to mid-market employers of 50 to 500 people, including several recruitment agencies that use Thomas on behalf of their own clients, and the Netherlands is a genuinely strong second market rather than an incidental one.
Crown Holdings
Packaging & ManufacturingGraduate hiring: the Aptitude assessment (GIA) after screening questions, the Behaviour assessment (PPA) after interviews.
View Crown Holdings guide →Downer Group
Infrastructure & ServicesAll four Thomas instruments across recruitment and people decisions in Australia and New Zealand.
View Downer Group guide →FactSet
Financial Data & TechnologyThe Personality assessment (HPTI) for talent development and succession planning.
View FactSet guide →NV5
Engineering & ConsultingAptitude (GIA), Personality (HPTI) and Behaviour (PPA) used in hiring to reduce turnover.
View NV5 guide →Robert Walters
RecruitmentThe Behaviour assessment (PPA) for internal hiring across its four Dutch offices.
View Robert Walters guide →Smurfit Kappa ELCORR
Packaging & ManufacturingBehaviour (PPA) and Aptitude (GIA) for hiring and retention at the Etten-Leur site in the Netherlands.
View Smurfit Kappa ELCORR guide →Trek Bikes
Consumer GoodsThe Behaviour assessment (PPA) for hiring at its Benelux office and distribution centre.
View Trek Bikes guide →Amtico
ManufacturingBehaviour (PPA), Personality (HPTI), Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue) and Aptitude (GIA) for development and succession planning.
View Amtico guide →Saffron Building Society
Banking & FinanceBehaviour (PPA) and Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue) for culture and development.
View Saffron Building Society guide →Arconic
Engineering & MaterialsThe Behaviour assessment (PPA) for senior management, supervisory and team leadership hiring.
IFS
Enterprise SoftwareThe Behaviour assessment (PPA) in hiring.
TLC Care
Healthcare & Social CareBehaviour (PPA) and Aptitude (GIA), used for retention and engagement.
Metal Supermarkets
Industrial DistributionBehaviour (PPA) and Aptitude (GIA) in hiring, to reduce turnover.
Vena Solutions
SoftwareBehaviour (PPA) and Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue) for leadership development.
Medela
Medical DevicesBehaviour (PPA) and Personality (HPTI) for team and manager integration.
Mintek
Mining & Minerals ResearchThomas Assess, Aptitude (GIA) and Behaviour (PPA) for graduate recruitment at scale.
ACG World
Pharmaceutical ManufacturingBehaviour (PPA) and Aptitude (GIA) for senior leaders, managers and graduates.
ORS
Engineering ConsultancyThe Behaviour assessment (PPA) for leadership and communication.
Projob
RecruitmentBehaviour (PPA) and Aptitude (GIA) by an Amsterdam recruitment agency, so candidates meet Thomas through the agency rather than the hiring employer.
LEF Recruitment
RecruitmentBehaviour (PPA) and Aptitude (GIA) at a Den Bosch agency, sent after a candidate is introduced to a client.
Target
RecruitmentThe Behaviour assessment (PPA) at a Dutch recruitment agency for the industrial sector. This is a 20-person agency founded in 2015, not the US retailer of the same name.
Thomas tags each case study with a country, and that tag is where the customer relationship sits rather than where every role is hired. Trek Bikes is an American company whose case study is about its Benelux office; Crown Holdings is US-listed and its case study quotes a sponsor at Crown Bevcan EMEA. Employers also change vendors between hiring cycles, so confirm the process for your role.
Practice 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.
Verbal Reasoning Test Practice
Short dense passages and true, false or cannot say answers. Judged on what the text supports, never on what you already know.
Logical Reasoning Test Practice
Shapes, sequences and flowcharts instead of words or numbers. Inductive, deductive, abstract, diagrammatic and spatial in one place.
Personality Test Practice for Job Applications
No right answers, which is exactly why they unsettle people. Learn the traits, the consistency checks and the formats before you sit one for real.
Ready to Start Practising?
Start free with GIA Perceptual Speed, the two-minute task where most candidates lose marks without realising, then unlock all 9 Thomas tests for unlimited practice.