What the NCRC is
The National Career Readiness Certificate is ACT’s certificate of foundational workplace skills, built on three ACT WorkKeys tests: Applied Math, Graphic Literacy and Workplace Documents. Employers ask for it in hiring for production, apprenticeship and entry-level roles, and schools and workforce programmes use it to show what their learners can do.
Each test is reported as a level from below 3 up to 7. The certificate takes the lowest of your three levels: Level 3 on all three earns a Bronze NCRC, 4 a Silver, 5 a Gold and 6 a Platinum. A Level 7 counts as Platinum. Below Level 3 on any of the three means no certificate.
Each certificate has a 9-digit number. You hold your scores and certificate in a myworkkeys.com account, and an employer can check a certificate by its number.
How the sitting works
You take the tests at a site such as a school, an employer or a local workforce centre; ACT’s Test Site Locator lists them. Each test has its own 55-minute clock, which cannot be paused. Online, each opens with a short tutorial and two practice questions before the clock starts. When the tests run back to back there is a 15-minute break after every two.
Within a test you can skip questions and return to them while time remains. Once a test’s time has expired you cannot go back to it. A calculator and formula sheet are available on Applied Math only. There is no penalty for guessing.
Worked example: which certificate?
Say you reach Level 6 in Applied Math, Level 5 in Graphic Literacy and Level 4 in Workplace Documents. Your lowest level is 4, so you earn a Silver NCRC, even though two of your three tests are at Gold or better.
To reach Gold you need only lift Workplace Documents to Level 5. On ACT’s published practice form that meant moving from 16 correct to 21 out of 30. Raising Applied Math further would not change the certificate at all. That is the main point of preparing for the NCRC: find your weakest test and spend most of your time there.
Tips for the NCRC
- Find out which certificate or which levels per test the job asks for. Postings often say, and the test site or recruiter can tell you.
- Take one full practice test of each type first, then put most of your practice into the lowest one.
- Practise at least once at the full length of a sitting. Concentration in the third test is part of the challenge.
- Use the break to rest, not to worry about the test you have just finished.
- If you fall short, you can retest straight away on a different form, so a weak sitting is not the end. Use the gap to practise the test that held you back.
Practise the full NCRC sitting on CogniPrep
Our NCRC Full Sitting runs Applied Math, Graphic Literacy and Workplace Documents back to back at their real lengths, each on its own 55-minute clock, with an untimed break screen after each test rather than ACT’s 15-minute break after two. Your result leads with the certificate you would most likely earn and the test that set it, using ACT’s practice-form cut-offs in proportion. Each test is also available on its own.