Practice for employer tests

SHL-style practice tests (unofficial): numerical, verbal and inductive

Unofficial practice. Not affiliated with or endorsed by SHL. Original questions in the numerical, verbal and figure formats, each on its own clock.

Short answer: SHL publishes many ability tests, and the format depends on the version an employer chooses. Its fact sheet for Verify Interactive Numerical Reasoning lists 18 minutes and at most 10 questions, for example. Check your invitation for your exact test. This page practises the common formats, each on its own clock, with original MyTestAtlas questions. It reports how many you got right and how far you got, not an SHL score or a percentile.

Source, read 17 October 2026: SHL's fact sheet for Verify Interactive – Numerical Reasoning lists an allowed time of 18 minutes and at most 10 questions, adaptive.

How this format works

An invitation that names SHL usually means one or more short ability tests, each sat on its own: a numerical test of tables and charts, a verbal test of passages and statements, and sometimes an inductive test of figure series. Versions differ in length and clock, and an employer may send one test or all three, so read your invitation before you plan the week.

The sittings here are fixed by us, not copied from any version: the numerical sitting deals 18 table and chart questions in 25 minutes with a calculator allowed, and the verbal sitting deals 30 statements in 19 minutes, several statements to each passage. Versions differ, so read your invitation for your own count and clock; pace is the part of a format that practice changes.

Each sitting keeps its own clock, so you can practise the one test you were sent without sitting the others. Questions come one at a time; you can go back within the sitting, and the clock never stretches.

The figure sitting deals 24 series of shapes in 25 minutes: four tiles follow a rule and you choose the fifth. Nothing is read and nothing is calculated; the skill is naming what changes from tile to tile.

These sittings have no personality questionnaire, situational judgement or mechanical questions, which some employers send alongside ability tests; this site does not practise those.

The format in brief

Published format

SHL's fact sheet for Verify Interactive – Numerical Reasoning lists an allowed time of 18 minutes and at most 10 questions, adaptive.

What this copies

The pace and the mix of question kinds, on its own clock. Never stretched.

What it does not copy

The questions, the scoring, and any percentile or norm group.

Sittings

Tables and charts · 18 in 25 minutes; Passages · 30 in 19 minutes; Figure series · 24 in 25 minutes.

Whose test

Unofficial practice; not affiliated with or endorsed by SHL. Original questions.

One question from each sitting, worked

These come from the same builders the sittings use, at fixed numbers no sitting deals. Try each before reading the answer.

A table: an average of three years

A passage: three statements

A series of shapes

Pace, and what to do with the clock

Eighteen numerical questions in 25 minutes leaves about 83 seconds each, which is enough for one careful calculation and not for two. Read the question first, then find its rows and years in the table, and keep the full figure until you round at the end.

Thirty statements in 19 minutes is about 38 seconds each, and you read every passage once for several statements. Read the passage slowly the first time; each statement after that is a quick check against what you already know it says.

If a question has not given way in twice its share of the clock, answer your best guess and move on: on this paper a blank scores nothing, so a guess can only help, and the next question may be a quick one. How the real test scores a blank is the employer's or test provider's to tell you, so ask.

What the result tells you

When a sitting ends you see how many you got right, how far you got, your seconds per question against the format's pace, and every question again with its working. That is your own count on that sitting, on our original questions.

It is not an SHL score. There is no norm group behind these questions, so there is no percentile, no pass mark and no estimate of the score a real test would give you. Use it to find the format that costs you the most time, then practise that one.