To aid you in your aptitude preparation, we’ll be providing insights into different types of aptitude tests and also share valuable advice on how you can ace them!
Aptitude tests function as psychometric tests used to assess important attributes of a candidate during the recruitment process of a company. These include – critical thinking skills, logical approach, and problem-solving skills.
These tests help the interviewer determine how a candidate will respond under immense work pressure during their time at the company.
What are the Different Types of Aptitude Tests?
- Numerical Reasoning: It’s a standard psychometric test to help hiring organizations gauge the numerical abilities of a candidate. These tests can tell you a lot about how an applicant will handle the day-to-day numerical formation involved in business activities.
- Situational Judgement: Like the name suggests, this type of aptitude test is meant to assess your understanding of critical work-place scenarios. These tests determine your problem-solving and judgement making abilities. You can get a mix of hypothetical and realistic office scenarios to deal with in such tests.
- Inductive Reasoning: One of the most commonly encountered aptitude tests during interviews is inductive reasoning. Therefore, ensure that you pay special attention to this section during aptitude preparation. Under this section you’ll encounter Interview puzzles based on cause and effect reasonings.
- Diagram-Based Reasoning Test: Also known as the abstract reasoning tests, these diagram-based reasoning tests assess how quickly you can observe an illustration and use them to arrive at the correct answer.
- Number Sequences: Also known as number series, these tests help determine the ability of a candidate to play with numbers. It gives the hiring organization an idea about the candidate’s IQ.
- Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Test: This test is used to predict the problem solving approach of the candidate in different situations.
- Syllogism: These tests provide vital information about the logical reasoning skills of the applicants.
- Spatial Reasoning Test: These tests are used to determine the innate ability of a candidate to remember the given shapes and manipulate them to arrive at a sequence.
- Mechanical Reasoning test: These tests target the ability of a candidate to think in-depth about mechanical concepts and apply them to solve problems.
- Verbal Reasoning: In these tests, you’ll be given a passage or a few statements to determine your understanding of written texts and the conclusions you draw from them.
To plan your aptitude preparation strategy, you need to include the above 10 types of aptitude tests in your problem solving timetable. To further hone your preparation, here are a few tips that will take you a long way!
10 Tips for Aptitude Preparation
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Solve Previous Years Papers
Previous years question papers can provide you powerful insights into the type of questions and their patterns that companies love to ask their applicants. You can either download these papers from free online sources or even buy hard copies of the same from the market. While practicing don’t forget to time yourself and carefully analyse your results.
2. Time Management
Time management is the key to solving any aptitude test. These psychometric tests are not only meant to test your IQ but also your ability to manage the time in your hands. To get better at solving aptitude tests in a stipulated amount of time, try solving multiple mock tests during your aptitude preparation.
3. Pay Special Attention to First Five Questions
When you take a computerised aptitude test, don’t forget to pay special attention to the first five questions. These questions might be the hardest of the lot but it’ll create a great positive impact on your score if you solve them correctly.
4. Read the Questions Carefully
Don’t jump straight to solving the answers before reading the questions properly. The questions can provide you important cues towards solving the problem easily. Furthermore, it is important to understand the demand of the question to arrive at the correct answer.
5. Don’t Forget to Go Through Your Answers
We recommend you to go through your entire answer sheet once you’re done with the question paper. During the revision, pay extra time to revise the answers of the complicated questions. Furthermore, if you’re in a time crunch, then pay attention to revising only the lengthy and complicated problems.
6. Complete All the Questions
Not being able to complete all the questions given in an aptitude test can have a negative impact on your overall score and can also hinder your performance in further interview rounds. Therefore, in aptitude tests quantity holds more importance. Ensure that you attempt all the questions given in the paper.
7. Take Care of the Blanks
Some companies have a rule of negative marking for leaving the question blank during an aptitude test. Therefore, before you begin answering the questions, read the instructions given by the company carefully.
However, if the rule states that there is negative marking for every wrong answer, then it’s better to leave the questions blank.
8. Don’t Get Stuck At One Question
Some applicants have a habit of solving the question paper in a sequence even if that means getting stuck at a difficult question and wasting minutes of your precious time. There are no extra brownie points for solving the paper sequentially. Therefore, leave the complicated questions for later and focus on solving the ones that you know the answer to.
9. Nourish Your Brain During Your Preparation
During your aptitude preparation, it is important to look after your body and brain to stay healthy and fit on the day of the exam. Ensure that you get at least 8 hours of sleep the night before the exam to wake up refreshed and alert! Eat a hearty breakfast on the morning of the test to improve your confidence.
10. Gather Important Details
Before you begin your aptitude preparation for a particular company, it is important to find out important details about the pattern of the test to prepare better for it. Find out the length of the test and question pattern by visiting the company’s website and other online sources.
Conclusion
When you prepare for Interview puzzles and aptitude tests bearing the above tips in mind, there’s no force in this world that can stop you from landing your dream job!
