Numerical reasoning test tips: make practice count

A raw score only tells you how many questions you got right this time. To get better at numerical reasoning, look at how you solved them. This guide takes you through one practice attempt and shows you how to review your calculations and choose what to practise next.

Check the instructions for your own test first

What it takes to pass a numerical reasoning test depends on how that test is run. Your invitation, or the instructions that come with it, explains how yours works. Before you practise, look there for five things: the name of the test, the deadline, whether it is timed, whether you can skip questions or go back, and which aids you may use, such as a calculator or rough paper.

Two published examples show how much tests differ. GOV.UK says the Civil Service numerical test is not timed, and that you cannot skip a question or go back. Aon says its tests start with instructions and example exercises that have no time limit, and that the test itself often has one. It also tells candidates to check the deadline in their invitation email or letter. So take the rules on timing, skipping and aids from your own instructions rather than from general advice.

If your invitation names one of these tests, our guide to it explains how it runs: Aon, SHL, Korn Ferry or the Civil Service numerical test. The rest of this page applies to any numerical test, and the practice it links to is in our numerical section.

Testonome is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the organisations whose tests this page describes.

Make a practice attempt you can review

To review an attempt, you need to see how you solved each question, so write your working down as you go: what the question asked, the figures and units you used, and each calculation. A few lines on paper are enough. Nothing on this site records your working, so your note is the only record of it.

If you have not practised yet, the button below opens the numerical practice page. Its 12-question diagnostic runs on a 12-minute clock, which starts only when you press start on that page, and every question comes with a worked explanation once you finish.

Start numerical practiceWorking

Then take each answer you got wrong, or got right without being sure, and check four things in your working:

1. What the question asked for, in its own words.
2. Which figures and units you used, and where each one came from.
3. How you calculated, one step at a time.
4. Whether the answer makes sense: its size, its unit and its direction.

What a review looks like on one worked attempt

Here is one practice question and an attempt at it. We wrote both: the question comes from our currency conversion practice, and the attempt has one step wrong. Read the working as if it were yours.

Which step would you change, and what would you practise next? Decide before you open the explanation.

Check which step changes

Step 3. The question says the bank deducts the fee, so the fee comes off the converted amount: 3,000 − 120 = 2,880 euros. Steps 1 and 2 are right: at 1.25 euros to the pound, pounds become euros by multiplying, and the fee is 4 percent of the 3,000 euros the conversion produced.

You can check the result without redoing the sums. A charge taken off leaves less than the 3,000 euros the conversion produced, and 3,120 is more.

Your next exercise depends on what happened when you tried it:

• You picked step 3 and could say why. Ask the same four questions of your own last attempt, or go on to a mixed practice set. One question you got right does not show how you would do across a whole test.
• You picked step 3 by guessing. Read the reason above again until you could explain it without looking, and then choose your next exercise.
• Step 1 lost you. The currency conversion page works this same question from the start, one step at a time, and opens its drill.
• You would have added the fee too. The currency conversion drill practises that step on five new questions, each converting at a rate and then applying a fee. It is untimed, and each question is worked through after you submit.

Choose your next exercise from what your working shows

Your own attempt will have different questions, so look in your working for the step you took, not for the name of a mistake. Here are four things you might find, with the explanation or drill that helps with each:

• You divided a change by the figure it ended at, not the one it started from. The percentage change page shows why the starting figure is the base, and its drill gives you five questions on it.
• You gave one group the other group’s share, or divided a total by one side of a ratio instead of by all its parts. Ratio sharing works through the split, and its drill practises it.
• You were not sure which figure goes where in a formula. The formula reference sets out twelve calculations, each with a worked example and a link to its drill.
• You can redo every step and say why each one is right. Move on to a mixed set on the practice page. If the organisation that invited you offers a practice or familiarisation test, take that as well, because it shows that test’s own screens and nothing here can.

Check the correction on questions you have not seen

Once you have practised the step, try it on questions you have not seen before, and review that attempt with the same four questions. Practise under the conditions your own test sets: timed if it is timed, and with a calculator only if your instructions allow one. Getting a question right because you remember it shows less than getting a new one right and being able to explain it.

No result on this site predicts your score on the test itself or tells you its pass mark. A reviewed attempt shows you which steps you can now do and explain, and which one to practise next.

The button below opens the numerical practice page, where the 12-minute clock starts only when you press start.