How the GIA Reasoning task works
A statement appears comparing two people on one quality, such as who is heavier, lighter, stronger or weaker. You can study it for as long as you need, then you click. The statement disappears and a question takes its place, such as “Who is lighter?”, with the two names as answer boxes. You click a name and the next statement appears.
Because the statement has gone by the time the question arrives, the task measures how well you hold what you read as well as how well you reason from it. The examples run from simple to more difficult, where the comparison is worded less directly.
Reasoning opens the GIA, which always runs its five tasks in the same order: Reasoning, Perceptual Speed, Number Speed and Accuracy, Word Meaning and Spatial Visualisation. Each task starts with its own instructions and practice examples. Employers can use the GIA early as a sift: Crown Holdings sent it after screening questions and kept the top half of its graduate applicants for interview.
How to answer a Reasoning question
Use the same routine on every statement:
- Before you click, decide who has more of the quality. Reduce the sentence to a two-word fact such as “Ana stronger”.
- Hold that fact, not the wording. You never need the exact sentence to answer.
- Read the question word. If it asks for the opposite quality, weaker rather than stronger, the answer is the other person.
- Click as soon as you have the fact. Rereading a simple statement costs time the later items need.
Worked example
Statement: “Kofi is outweighed by Lena.” Before clicking, turn it into one fact: Lena heavier. The question then asks “Who is lighter?”, with Kofi and Lena as the options. Lena is the heavier one, so the answer is Kofi.
Statement: “Nina is not as strong as Joel.” The fact to hold is Joel stronger. The question asks “Who is weaker?”, so the answer is Nina. The negative is the trap: read too fast and “strong” is the word you remember next to Nina.
Tips for the real Reasoning task
- Read Thomas’s free GIA example booklet beforehand. It shows each task the way it appears on screen.
- Use the practice examples before the task to settle your routine, so the first real items are not where you learn it.
- Do not guess blind. With two names a guess is right half the time, and the reported full-mark penalty cancels that out on average.
- Sit it on a desktop or laptop with a mouse. The GIA will not run on a phone or tablet.
- Use an up-to-date Firefox, Edge, Chrome or Safari, and avoid a work network, whose security settings can block the test.
- Keep working until the task ends. You are not expected to answer every item, so a slow start still leaves marks to win.
Practise GIA Reasoning on CogniPrep
Our Reasoning drill runs on a 5-minute clock that starts when the first statement appears and never pauses. Items are generated, so there is no fixed count: you answer as many as you can. Each statement compares two people, you click to hide it, then pick one of two names, with no going back. Each wrong answer costs a full mark, and at the end you see how many items you reached, how many were wrong, your adjusted score and a percentile against CogniPrep players. The 5-minute clock is ours, because Thomas publishes only the 2 to 5 minute range, and our drill has no practice items before the clock starts.