How your numerical score is interpreted

The way in which the numerical test score is interpreted is similar to that of other aptitude tests (verbal and abstract) .  Your score is compared to a benchmark that includes scores of others at an organisational level and in an occupation similar to the one you are applying for. For example, if you apply for a role in marketing and are given a numerical reasoning test to complete, your raw score (or the number of correct responses) is then compared with a large number of scores of people who either work in marketing roles or applied for roles in marketing. This enables employers to learn how good your numerical reasoning skills are in comparison to those of others in the area you applied for.

There is no 'passing' score to the numerical reasoning test. Your numerical test result is calculated relative to that of other people in similar roles. This means that even if you correctly answered most of the questions in the numerical reasoning test, your result may still be lower than that of other people in similar roles. How is this possible? Let’s look at the following example: you correctly answered 24 of 30 questions. You interpret this to be a ‘good result’ . However, other people in similar roles to that you applied for have also very strong numerical reasoning skills and on average answer correctly 26 of 30 questions. This means that your ‘good result’ is actually a ‘ bad result’ because it’s lower than the average result of people who work in a similar role to that you applied for.