Practice for aptitude tests

Numerical reasoning test practice: tables, percentages and ratios

Timed numerical reasoning in the employer format: a table or chart, a question, five options. New numbers every sitting, every answer worked. Free.

Have a test date? Make a practice plan to your test date: which days to practise, a calendar file, and questions this device has not been given before. It is kept on this device only if you ask.

How this drill works

The drill deals 12 questions on a 12-minute clock, one minute a question, which is close to the pace the numerical tests employers send are set at. Every question shows a table, two tables or a chart of real figures published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: jobs and hourly pay by industry, consumer prices, unemployment by state and job openings. You answer one question about it by choosing one of five figures.

The five options are not random numbers. Four of them are what the usual slips produce: dividing by the new figure instead of the old one, reading the neighbouring row or year, or giving a change in percentage points when the question asks for a percentage. An option that matches your first attempt is therefore no proof that you are right. Check which figure is the base before you pick.

A calculator is allowed, as it is in most real numerical tests, so have one open beside the page. Keep the full figure while you work and round once, at the end, to the places the question names: the options are spaced so that a careful answer rounded once lands on exactly one of them.

When the clock stops you see how many you answered correctly, your pace against the minute a question, and every question again with its working: the cells it used and the arithmetic in order. A new sitting deals new figures; the paper number on the result deals the same paper again if you want to retry it.

The drill in brief

Format

A table, two tables or a chart, one question, five options.

Question types

Percentage change, share of a total, change in percentage points, an average, a projection at the same rate, two tables combined, a price index, and reading a bar or a pie chart.

Questions and clock

12 questions in 12 minutes.

Calculator

Allowed. Round only at the end.

Result

How many you answered correctly, your pace, and the working for every question. No percentile or pass mark.

Whose test

Original questions on public figures, not any publisher’s test.

Four questions, worked

These four come from the same question builder the drill uses, at fixed numbers, with the answer and its working shown. A sitting deals different rows, years and industries.

Percentage change

Share of a total

Two tables at once

Reading a chart

Three costly mistakes

• Dividing by the wrong base. A rise from 240 to 300 is 60 on a base of 240, so 25%. Dividing by 300 gives 20%, which is always among the options. The base is the earlier figure, or the one after “than”.
• Mixing up points and per cent. An unemployment rate going from 4% to 5% has risen by one percentage point, and by 25%. The question says which it wants; read that word last, just before you choose.
• Dropping the units. Jobs are given in thousands and pay in dollars an hour. 16,771 thousand jobs at $22.04 an hour is 369,633 thousand dollars, which is $369.6 million: convert once, at the end, and check the size against the options.

Where the drill fits

Use the drill to work on one kind of question until the working is automatic, and the full mock to practise switching between sections under one clock. If the minute a question feels tight, sit one drill untimed in your head first: read the question before the table, so you know which row and which years you need before you look at the numbers.

Number series and ratio questions without a table are in the untimed numerical set; the guide to number series shows the five patterns those questions use and how to test each one quickly.