What is the UCAT Test?

The Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test (UCAT) is a general cognitive aptitude assessment which
assesses candidates’ intellectual abilities to solve problems, learn new skills, analyse data,
apply information, and think critically. The UCAT test involves 40 questions which must be
answered in the space of 20 minutes. UCAT is a language-independent test and does not
include the verbal aptitude exam.

Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test

UCAT is a broadly validated predictor of job performance for a wide variety of jobs. This pre-
employment test assesses one’s critical thinking, problem-solving, analysis and numerical
reasoning skills. Taking UCAT virtual online tests is a more accurate predictor of job
performance than job interviews or previous work experience.

The different UCAT aptitude tests are:

Spatial Reasoning: Being able to make adequate spatial judgments, visualise solutions, and
solve problems. Spatial tests aren’t reliant on educational and cultural background, so
individuals are assessed at an equal level.

Attention to Detail: Possessing the ability to pay attention and thoroughly execute detail-
oriented exercises and tasks. Employees who are detail-oriented are more likely to avoid
making damaging mistakes.

Numerical Reasoning: Having the capability of reasoning by using arithmetical concepts and
solving numerical problems.

Logic and Analysis: Using one’s judgement and cognitive abilities to resolve problems and
comprehend data. Analytical skills are highly linked to general cognitive aptitude and mental
compatibility with the job.
Why Does the UCAT Measure These Traits?
Each cognitive ability which is evaluated is essential in helping employers pinpoint the best
applicants for specific jobs. Analytical skills are needed for positions which require critical
thinking and making decisions. The analytical skills being assessed in this test are related to
one’s use of logical thinking and effective reasoning in the face of various situations. Test-takers
must demonstrate that they are able to draw accurate conclusions, which also demonstrates
how quickly they can learn new skills and improve.

Logical capabilities show how well one comprehends and infers complex material and data.
This skill is essential because it shows whether candidates have good problem-solving abilities.
When one can utilize their logical skills, they can make better decisions and are usually more
likely to be in managerial positions. One pre-employment test which often measures one’s
logical reasoning abilities is the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT) which is quite similar
to the UCAT exam and assesses candidates applying to middle or high-level careers.

Math skills are often required when being considered for hire, as math is a part of everyday
functions. Possessing a basic understanding of math helps employees thrive and get to
objective solutions. Spatial reasoning competencies are used to test one’s general intelligence
since they are a large predictor for high job performance. This skill includes the ability to
envision spatial patterns, make judgments, and solve problems based on this information.
UCAT spatial tests are not dependent on how educated or cultural a candidate is to perform
well.

Critical thinking is an important skill that employers search for in candidates, as it displays a
level of high intelligence and logical reasoning. Individuals who possess this aptitude are more
likely to recognize contradictions and errors, perceive several viewpoints on a given argument,
and make practical decisions. Critical thinking skills are strongly related managerial positions
seeing as they require these leadership abilities.
Set Your Mind to a Rapid Working Pace
Working at a quick pace does not simply depend only on your cognitive abilities and your
knowledge, but also on your motivation and your state of mind during the test, two factors
which you can also affect and control (besides studying and improving your knowledge). This
can be compared to walking vs. sprint running. When moving around we are used to a normal
comfortable pace and normally walk, but if we want, we can of course move at a higher speed.
On this test you need to adopt a "sprint running" attitude, which means trying to work as fast
as you can, while of course taking care not to make careless mistakes.

You can practice this state of mind while reading a text. Go back to the beginning of this
paragraph and try to read it as quickly as possible while still maintaining understanding of the
material. It is most likely that you will see that your speed can substantially increase without
hindering your understanding if you just set your mind to this “quick as possible” attitude. Of
course, as mentioned before, careless mistakes should be avoided. If you find yourself making
too many of these, you should probably slow down a bit and try to maintain a high level of
concentration while working.

Smartly Navigate through Test Questions

Another important dimension in time management is not to get stuck on difficult questions. If
you encounter a question that is taking you too long and you have no idea how to approach it,
or you estimate that a question is difficult and will be too much time consuming, you should
consider skipping it. All questions on the UCAT are of the same value, thus, your goal is to
answer as many questions correctly as possible, regardless of how challenging the questions
are. Of course, deciding when and if to skip a question is not an exact science, but you can
improve your judgment on this issue using practice tests.

Inability to Revisit Previous Questions

It is important to note that on the UCAT you will not be able to return to previous questions.
Given this fact, it is important not to skip too many questions and finish the test with time to
spare, while remaining careful not to get stuck on any question for too long. The general rule of
thumb is: if after 10 seconds you are not progressing towards answering the question within
another 20 seconds, eliminate as many wrong answers as you can, guess, and move on.
No Penalty for Wrong Answers
Time is nearly ending? Do not forget to mark all questions with an answer, even when not
knowing the answer! Remember that even a random answer still has 20% of being correct. Try
to increase these chances by making educated guesses (find below more about working with
distracters and the elimination process)

Questions Become Increasingly Difficult as the Test Progresses

Generally speaking, the level of difficulty increases throughout the test, thus, most of the
difficult questions are found near its end. However, this is not a hard and fast rule and
sometimes easier questions can appear at later stages and difficult ones can appear at earlier
ones. So, you should be prepared to judge a question’s difficulty quickly and determine if you
should skip it or try to solve it.

Shortcuts: How to Save Precious Time

As mentioned, one of the main challenges we are faced with when taking this test is keeping up
with the difficult time limit. Improving our speed is critical, and in order to solve quicker we
can utilize a few shortcuts when faced with relatively difficult calculations. Sometimes applying
these techniques can save us time even when the question is relatively easy.

Solving questions directly

It is always preferred to estimate whether you can directly solve each question or not. That is, if
you understand the question simply move on to solving it and then look for your answer.
Finding a match may indicate high probability that your answer is correct.

However, it is still a good idea to have at least a glance at the other answer choices, since they
may tell you quite a lot, as specified in the next section:

Eliminating Distracters
Distracters are the incorrect answer choices for each question. Their name implies their role in
the test: To distract the test taker from choosing the correct answer. The distracters for each
question were deliberately chosen by the test writer, and do not just represent wrong answer
choices. Usually, one or two distracters are very misleading, or present an outcome of an
incorrect solution path. Your goal is to locate them and eliminate them. In some cases, knowing
how to read and interpret the distracters might save your precious time. The distracters can
sometimes imply how to bypass some more complex calculations.

The two most important principles of elimination are:

1. Once an answer choice is eliminated, it shouldn't be addressed any longer.
2. Once all answer choices but one are eliminated, you should mark the last option as the
correct answer and move forward to the next question. Verifying the verity of the last
possible option, while possibly relaxing, is still time-consuming, thus we recommend not
doing it. The most obvious way of elimination is to test each answer choice as the correct
answer by means of calculation. However, in most cases this is also the most time-consuming
method. Here are a few methods that will improve your process of elimination:

Working With Numbers Quickly

First - Digit Technique
Check the following question:
There are 803 boxes in storage; each box contains 62 cellphone covers. How many cellphone covers are
there in storage?
A. 49786
B. 49788
C. 46206
D. 46208
None of the answers strikes at first as the obvious correct answer. The first digits of 83 x 62 are 8 and 6.
The product of 8x6 is 48. Therefore, according to the first-digit technique we can tell that the correct
answer must be above 48000:
803 x 62 is greater than 800 x 60. This product equals 48000.
This method enables us to further eliminate options C and D; since they are lower than 48000.

Complex Fractions Calculations

Consider the next question:
I'm cycling for 23 2/5 miles so far, and I still have 7 4/5 in front of me. How many miles will I cycle in
total?
A. 93 1/5
B. 31 1/5
C. 30 2/5
D. 15 3/5
Performing calculation with fractions is a bit more complex than without them; however sometimes we
don't need to perform the entire calculation. Adding solely the fractions of both elements may help us
to solve the question faster:
23 2/5 + 7 4/5
2/5 + 4/5 = 6/5 = 1 1/5
Hence, the correct answer must end with 1/5. Reviewing the answer choices reveals that only options A
and B end with 1/5, thus options C and D are eliminated. By estimation (see more below) we can tell
that option A suggest a result which is too high, and we can mark option B as the correct answer and
move forward.

Calculations with Decimals

Same as with fractions, we can reduce calculation time and eliminate some (or even all) answer choices
by addressing only the decimal part of the elements in a question. Per example:
The coat costs $103. How much does it cost after a 10% discount?
A. 92.7$
B. 93.0$
C. 88.6$
D. 93.3$
Glancing at the answer choices reveals that all options have different figures in their decimal part: $92.7,
$93.0, $88.6, $90.3
We calculate 10% of 103 to be 10.3. Now we need to deduct 10.3 from 103 to find the price after the
discount:
103 is a natural number with no decimal part. The decimal part of 10.3 is of course .3
If we understand that reducing a 10.3 from a natural number must result in a number which its decimal
part is .7, then only option A remains as a suitable answer, and all other option are eliminated. Again,
the complete calculation was not necessary, and moreover – completing the calculation to verify the
verity of the answer will only consume our precious time.

Last – Digit Technique

Let's take a look at the following question:
6582 x 823 = ?
1. 4,876,312
2. 8,234,313
3. 5,220,411
4. 5,416,986
At first glance, this question looks quite unsolvable, at least not in a reasonable amount of time, but
actually it's quite simple and can be solved in a few seconds.
When numbers are multiplied, the product of their last digits' multiplication will be the last digit of the
answer. To understand this principle, let's take another look at the question, focusing on the last digits:
6582 x 823 = ?
When multiplying 2 and 3 we get 6. Therefore, the answer's last digit will also be 6. A look at the
answers reveals that there is only one answer choice that abides to this rule, answer number 4.
Therefore, we don’t really need to calculate anything besides 2 times 3!
1. 4,876,312
2. 8,234,313
3. 5,220,411
4. 5,416,986
If multiplying the last digits yields a number that is greater than 9, we simply use the last digit of that
number, for example:
647 x 322 =
Since 7 x 2 = 14 we will expect the answer's last digit to be 4 (the last digit of 14).
Although it is very unlikely that we will encounter calculations as difficult as the ones in the above
example, this technique can be just as useful in simpler, more common calculations. For example:
A paper clip costs $0.88. How much does a pack of 6 cost?
1. $5.22
2. $4.86
3. $5.28
4. $5.70
Although this calculation is not too complicated, we can save time by using the last digit technique:
The calculation we are required to do is $0.88 x 6 = ?
Because 8 x 6 = 48, we expect the last digit of the answer to be 8. Therefore, the correct answer will be
answer number 3.
Using Estimations
Another technique we can use to avoid unnecessary calculations is estimations.
When confronted with a calculation which is relatively difficult we can:
1. Round up the numbers to figures which are more comfortable to work with.
2. Estimate the expected answer.
3. Rule out the unlikely answers, hopefully remaining with only one option left.

Let’s take a look at the Following example to see how this works:
Larry invested a third of his $6,216 earnings in the stock market. What was the size of his investment?
1. $879
2. $2,072
3. $2,804
4. $3,120
In order to avoid calculating 6,216/3, we can round down 6,216 to 6,000, a relatively close number
which is easier to work with. 6,000/3 = 2000. Since the original number was 6,216, we can estimate that
the answer would be slightly above $2,000. Reviewing the options available, we can immediately rule
out answers 1 & 4. Since answer 3 is too far from 2000 to be in our estimation range, we can safely
conclude that the correct answer would be $2072, answer number 2.
In this example, the answers were quite spread apart in size, making it easier for us to estimate, but
what if the answers were closer to each other?
We can take the estimation process a step further by splitting up $6,216 into 6000+216. 216 is pretty
close to 210, which we can divide by 3 quite easily: 210/3 = 70 (it is enough to remember from the
multiplication table that 21/3 = 7).
Thus, if 6,000/3 = 2,000, and210/3 = 70
We can add them up to 2070, and get an even more accurate estimation.
To sum this up, when estimating we can:
a. Begin with a quick rough estimation.
b. If that is not sufficient to rule out all answers but one, move on to a more accurate estimation.
c. If that is not enough, we will have to calculate.
Of course there could be questions in which estimating will not be necessary, because the calculations
required will be relatively easy. Still, we should always keep this technique in mind and apply it
whenever it can be useful in improving our efficiency and saving us precious time.

Another Methodology concerning Estimations – Using an "Anchor"

Consider the following question:
Which of the following fractions is the smallest?
A. 3/7
B. 1/3
C. 5/6
D. 9/14
The most straight forward method to solve this problem is to perform a series of comparisons between
the fractions – for each comparison to find a common denominator and then to decide which fraction is
smaller and compare it to the next option. We can use estimations to narrow the number of
comparisons. How?
An "anchor" is a relatively familiar and "comfortable" number that we can use in order to divide certain
options into groups. In out particular problem 1/2 can be used as an anchor. It is easier to ask ourselves
which of the fraction is higher/lower than 1/2, than to compare all of them one to the other.
3/7 and 1/3 are lower than 1/2. 5/6 and 9/14 are higher than 1/2. We need to find the smallest fraction,
so being lower than 1/2, it is enough to compare 3/7 and 1/3 to find the smallest fraction. We used our
"anchor" to reduce the number of "uncomfortable" comparisons.
Another example:
How much are 216% of 350?
A. 696
B. 702
C. 756
D. 932
216% of "y" are actually "y" times 2.16.
The full solution path to this problem requires us performing a rather complex calculation. In order to
facilitate the problem we can use an "anchor". 216% is rather close to 200%, and calculating 200% of
350 is an easier task:
200% of 350 = 350x2 = 700. Now we have an "anchor" – 700, and we can compare it to the answer
choices and to decide which of them is the correct answer using estimations. We know that the correct
answer must be a little bit more than 700. Option A is lower than 700, thus immediately eliminated. We
can estimate that option B is too near to 700, and option D is too far from 700, therefore the correct
answer must be option C. As mentioned above, even though the calculation is not complete, the
estimation enables an educated guess, and we can mark option C and move forward to the next
question.

Just to clear your mind, 216% of 350 are indeed 756.

Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test Sample

Questions
Are you in need of some example questions so that you can get a feel of the test format and
types of questions asked?

Below you will find some sample UCAT questions:

Question 1:
Question 2:
Question 3:

Question 4:
A city has a population of 1300. If the city’s population grows 30%, what is its new population?

A. 1420
B. 1510
C. 1600
D. 1690
E. 1780

Answer: D
Question 5:
How many of the four pictures in the left hand column are exactly the same as the corresponding
picture in the right hand column?

A. 0
B. 1
C. 2
D. 3
E. 4

Answer: C
Universal Cognitive Aptitude Test Tips
When taking the UCAT test, it is advised to bring in a stopwatch to help keep track of time by
calculating the largest amount of time allowed per question. It is also recommended to bring a
piece of paper for an online test, however, it’s probable that you won’t be able to take notes in
an official cognitive ability test. For this reason, you should get used to conceptualizing the
answers.

Put yourself in realistic test situations to mimic the real test environment you will have to face.
Online tests depend largely on the amount of time you are given so it’s important not to stay
stuck on a difficult question since easy and hard questions have the same score. Additionally,
spending a lot of time on one hard question will set you back timewise. Your goal should be to
answer as many questions correctly as possible.

Try to read through each question enough times to understand what they are asking and when
answering questions based on given information and passages, try to guess at the answer.
Refer to the given data and choose the most reasonable answer. If you are left with several
questions that you don’t know the answers to, attempting to choose the right answer but being
uncertain is still helpful. Guessing the answer does not deduct points from your overall score,
in fact, your answers may be correct.

Lastly, look out for trick questions while answering questions as efficiently and quickly as
possible. It is always a better idea to spend more time on a question and to make sure the
instructions are clear to you. Try to stay calm and focused so that stress doesn’t affect your
answering abilities. Get a good night’s sleep and eat a substantial meal before taking the test.