What is the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT)?

The Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test in one paragraph

The CCAT is a timed aptitude test that employers send to job applicants. It has 50 multiple-choice questions and a 15-minute limit. The questions cover math and logic, verbal ability and spatial reasoning. Your result is a raw score out of 50 and a percentile. Criteria Corp, a hiring-assessment company, makes and runs it; employers buy it and decide what to do with the score (Criteria).

Criteria describes it as measuring "an individual's aptitude, or ability to solve problems, digest and apply information, learn new skills, and think critically" (Criteria product page). It doesn't test what you know about a job. It tests how fast you reason with new information.

Not the Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test

Search "CCAT" and you'll also find the Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test, sometimes called CCAT-7, which Canadian schools use to place children in gifted programs. It's a different test from a different publisher for a different purpose. Everything on this page is about Criteria's hiring test. If your invitation came from an employer, through Criteria's assessment center, this is your test.

The format: 50 questions, 15 minutes

Sources: Criteria candidate page, Information Brief, product page.

The time limit is the test. Criteria's help documentation says most people won't finish "and this is by design," because the CCAT measures "how quickly someone processes information" (Criteria Help Docs). At 18 seconds per question on average, the skill being measured is partly reasoning and partly deciding fast which questions to spend time on.

Rules that vary by employer, like retakes, proctoring and scratch paper, are covered on the CCAT rules page. That page also covers what Criteria doesn't publish, such as whether you can go back to an earlier question.

What the CCAT measures, and what the questions look like

Criteria splits the CCAT into three abilities and reports a sub-score for each (Information Brief):

Math and logic. "Problem solving skills, arithmetic, logic and numerical reasoning," in Criteria's words. On its candidate page Criteria lists "basic algebra skills, ability to determine proportions," and word problems. In practice that means percentages, ratios, averages, rates, number sequences, reading a small table or chart, and logic questions where you decide whether a conclusion follows from a few statements. Criteria's own sample: "A group of 3 numbers has an average of 17. The first two numbers are 12 and 19. What is the third number?" (The answer is 20: three numbers averaging 17 add up to 51, and 51 minus 31 is 20.)

Verbal ability. "Reading and comprehension of words, logic, constructive thinking and attention to detail," tested "through sentence completion, vocabulary, and word comparison questions" (Criteria Help Docs). Expect synonyms, antonyms, analogies and fill-in-the-blank sentences. Criteria's sample is an antonym: the opposite of LENGTHEN, with "truncate" as the answer.

Spatial reasoning. "The ability to visualise objects in physical space, make spatial judgments, and problem solve," per the same help doc. Criteria's candidate page says you'll "rotate or flip images in your head, recognize patterns, and identify outliers." Criteria's sample asks which of five figures does not belong.

Criteria publishes these three groups but not how many questions of each type appear on a given test, and it says no two candidates get the same set. Clever Cat Prep's practice test uses its own mix (18 math, 16 verbal, 10 spatial and 6 logic out of 50). That's our simulator's mix, written in the CCAT's format, not a figure from Criteria.

You can see worked examples of each type on our CCAT practice questions page, or go straight to math, verbal, logic, spatial reasoning, number series and syllogisms. Each page shows sample questions with the answer, the explanation and a faster route.

How the CCAT is scored

Your raw score is the number of questions you got right, out of 50. Blanks and wrong answers both count as zero. Criteria converts the raw score into a percentile against its reference group, and reports a percentile for each of the three abilities. Employers get the report; Criteria's support team can't see it (Criteria Candidate FAQs).

Criteria says "the average test taker only gets 24 questions right" (Criteria). Its two published reference groups, one of 985 working adults (product page) and one of 106,740 applicants and employees (Information Brief), both have a median of 24. In Criteria's sample score report, a raw score of 24 is the 50th percentile. So half of 50 is not a low score. It's a typical one.

There's no pass mark. Criteria publishes suggested score ranges for 42 job families, with floors between 17 and 24, and lets employers set their own. The CCAT score guide has the ranges and what they mean for you.

Who uses the CCAT, and why

Criteria says the CCAT is "commonly used for a broad range of mid- to high-level positions" and names managers, sales executives, software developers, executive assistants and analysts, plus roles with a lot of training such as apprentice, intern and graduate jobs (Information Brief). Our users mostly take it for software, remote, sales, finance and operations roles, often with only a few days' notice.

Why employers use it: Criteria's position is that cognitive aptitude is one of the strongest predictors of job performance. Its product page puts it at "1.6x as predictive as job interviews and 4x as predictive as experience" (Criteria product page). That's Criteria's claim about its own product category, not ours.

Criteria also publishes how consistent the test is. Its Information Brief reports a reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of 0.86 from 97,929 test takers. Reliability measures whether the questions on a test hang together; the brief notes that .70 or above is generally considered acceptable. It also reports a correlation of .78 with the Wonderlic Personnel Test, though that figure comes from only 34 people who took both. Read it as "the tests measure similar things," not as a score conversion. Our CCAT vs Wonderlic page covers the differences.

What taking the CCAT is like, start to finish

Most people meet the CCAT as an email. It comes from the employer or from Criteria's address, Do-Not-Reply@criteriacorp.com, with a link to Criteria's assessment center and an Event ID (Criteria Candidate FAQs). Write the Event ID down. If your browser crashes or your connection drops, you go back to the assessment center, enter it, and continue.

The invitation may have an expiry date. If you miss it, Criteria can't extend it for you; its FAQ says to ask the employer. The CCAT is often one test in a set. Criteria's Information Brief shows a candidate summary with the CCAT next to a personality or skills test, and an optional "Talent Signal," a weighted average of your results across the tests an employer chose (Information Brief). So a strong CCAT score sits next to other results, not on its own.

When you start, you get instructions first. They aren't timed. Then the 15-minute clock runs until it reaches zero or you finish question 50. You won't see your score at the end. Criteria sends it to the employer, and whether you hear the number depends on the company.

If you apply to the same employer again within a year, it may reuse this result instead of asking you to test again. Criteria's default reuse window is 12 months. A different company will send its own invitation, and you take the test again (Criteria Help Docs).

The CCAT and the UCAT

Criteria also sells the Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test (UCAT). Its CCAT product page calls the UCAT "the language-independent version of the CCAT." The differences, from Criteria's UCAT page:

If your invitation names the UCAT, expect math, logic and spatial questions with no vocabulary, and a little more time per question: 30 seconds on average instead of 18. It is not the UK university admissions test that shares the name.

How to prepare for the CCAT

Criteria encourages preparation. It offers a free mini practice test it describes as similar to the CCAT, and its help docs say it gives all candidates the chance to familiarize themselves with the test, so nobody is at a disadvantage for never having seen one (Criteria Help Docs). Criteria's mini test is short and, in its own words, doesn't reflect "the full difficulty level" of the real assessment.

What we'd do with a few days:

1. Take one full, timed test today. 50 questions, 15 minutes, no calculator. You'll learn your pacing, and which question types eat your time. Clever Cat Prep's free CCAT practice test gives you one, with an AI debrief of where the points went. One free session, no card.
2. Drill your two or three weakest types. Not everything. The fastest gains come from the types where you're slow or guessing.
3. Learn when to guess. No penalty for wrong answers means no blanks. Criteria's own rule of thumb is to guess after a minute; we'd cut that in half.
4. Take a second full test the day before. Same conditions. You're checking pacing, not cramming.

Questions about what your result will mean? Read the CCAT score guide. Questions about calculators, going back or retakes? See CCAT rules. Ready to sit a full one? Start the timed CCAT practice test.