The IQ test for job interviews: what the law says and who sees your score

0 The short answer

An "IQ test" in a job interview is almost never an IQ test: it is a short, timed employer aptitude test, such as the 50 question, 12 minute cognitive section of Wonderlic Select, that costs the candidate nothing and whose result the employer sees and the candidate usually does not. In the United States a test that screens out a protected group must be job related (Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 1971), reasonable accommodation is required for a known disability, and, by the publisher's own account, employers are generally not required to share your result; in Great Britain the Equality Act 2010 requires reasonable adjustments in recruitment and the right of access lets you ask for your personal information. For a private, adult normed look at your own profile, ACIS is one option at 15, 30 or 50 dollars for about 45, 110 or 175 minutes (prices read October 29, 2026), with the decisive limit that it is a self-assessment and not for hiring; the guide to pre-employment test types and preparation covers the tests themselves.

1 What Counts as an IQ Test in a Job Interview?

What an employer calls an IQ test is a pre-employment cognitive ability or aptitude test: a short set of timed verbal, numerical and reasoning questions that is scored for the employer, and it is not the individually administered intelligence test a psychologist gives. Two employer products show how it looks in practice, read on the publishers' own pages on October 29, 2026.

The Wonderlic Select cognitive section, according to Wonderlic's own page, "consists of 50 questions that candidates have 12 minutes to answer," with challenges "related to simple math, basic logic, language comprehension, spatial reasoning, pattern identification, and more" that become increasingly difficult. The candidate FAQ adds that the full Wonderlic Select assessment takes about 35 minutes, because the timed cognitive section is followed by an untimed motivational section of 58 items and an untimed personality section of 150 items.

The Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal from Pearson TalentLens is described on its product page as 40 items in a timed 30 to 40 minutes, designed to measure the ability to "analyse, reason, interpret and draw logical conclusions from written information." Two further employer tests that candidates meet have their own pages here: the CCAT test and the PI Cognitive Assessment. The problem solving test page covers a neighboring format.

None of these is an IQ test in the sense a psychologist or researcher uses the term. In CHC model vocabulary, our reading of the Wonderlic publisher's list is that it samples Gq (simple math), Gc (language comprehension), Gf (logic and patterns) and Gv (spatial reasoning) under a clock that also rewards Gs, speed; that mapping is ours, not Wonderlic's. Whether a Wonderlic number can become an IQ is the question of the page on converting a Wonderlic score to IQ.

The table sets the real options side by side. It holds only what we could read on a publisher or official page on October 29, 2026, and where the page is silent the cell says so.

2 When Does the Test Arrive in the Hiring Process?

A cognitive test usually reaches the candidate as an online link after the application and before or around the interview, and the employer, not the law, decides the stage, so the useful skill is knowing what to ask when the invitation arrives. No law or regulation we read fixes a stage for testing. What the sources show is the pattern. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, lists "psychometric tests, skills tests, or aptitude tests" and assessment centres among the ways an employer shortlists candidates, in its draft guidance on shortlisting, testing and interviewing (consultation closed, final version not yet published when we read it on October 29, 2026). The same draft says candidates often complete remote assessments "in their own home, using their own devices," which matches the publisher's account that Wonderlic Select is typically not proctored.

The invitation is the employer's. The Wonderlic FAQ says three things: the organizations using its platform are responsible for their own testing invitations, so a candidate who needs a new one must contact the hiring organization; links generally stay active for a maximum of 14 days; and prospective employers have immediate access to the testing results when the assessment ends.

Three situations are worth separating. In the first, the test is a gate before any person reads your application, and the ICO draft notes that a solely automated decision about whether to shortlist, recommend for interview or reject has legal or similarly significant effects, a point taken up below. In the second, the test sits beside an interview and other exercises, which the ICO draft's worked example presents as good practice: scores carry some weight but nobody is eliminated on them alone. In the third, the employer is regulated and the test is part of a formal process, as with the police forces covered on the police IQ test page.

A good invitation answers questions before you start, and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014), which we read in the open access edition, say so. Standard 8.2 asks that test takers be given in advance as much information about the test, the testing process, the intended test use, test scoring criteria, testing policy, availability of accommodations and confidentiality protection as is consistent with obtaining valid responses. If the email does not say, you are entitled to ask, and five questions cover most of it:

1. Which test is it, and who publishes it?
2. How will the result be used: as a cut score, as one input among several, or only for later development?
3. How do I request an accommodation, and by when?
4. Who will see my result, and can I receive a copy or feedback?
5. How long will you keep my results?

The types of test and how to prepare are the work of the guide to pre-employment cognitive tests, which this page does not repeat.

3 What Did Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Decide About Hiring Tests?

In Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971), the United States Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits hiring tests and diploma requirements that operate to exclude Black employees and are not shown to be related to job performance, whatever the employer intended. The case is the legal root of almost every question about an employer's intelligence or aptitude test, and it is worth reading in the Court's own words, so this section follows the opinion as published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute, read October 29, 2026.

The case was argued on December 14, 1970 and decided on March 8, 1971, with Chief Justice Burger writing for the Court. The question was whether Title VII prohibits requiring a high school education or the passing of a standardized general intelligence test as a condition of employment or transfer when neither is shown to be significantly related to successful job performance, both disqualify Black applicants at a substantially higher rate than white applicants, and the jobs had formerly been filled only by white employees. The company let incumbent employees without a high school education qualify for transfer to "inside" jobs by passing two tests: the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which the opinion says "purports to measure general intelligence," and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test. Neither, the opinion states, was directed or intended to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job, and the scores required approximated the national median for high school graduates.

The Court's reasoning has four parts that matter to a candidate today.

First, consequences count as much as motives. The opinion says the Act "proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation," and that "good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability."

Second, the touchstone is business necessity. The opinion states that if an employment practice which operates to exclude Black employees cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited, and it places the burden on the employer: Congress "has placed on the employer the burden of showing that any given requirement must have a manifest relationship to the employment in question." On the record, neither the diploma requirement nor the general intelligence test was shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs, and both were adopted "without meaningful study of their relationship to job-performance ability."

Third, the "professionally developed ability test" clause does not rescue a test that is not job related. Section 703(h) of the Act authorizes the use of "any professionally developed ability test" that is not "designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race." The Court noted that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission read the clause to permit only job-related tests and that the agency's reading deserved great deference.

Fourth, the Court did not ban testing. In its words, "Nothing in the Act precludes the use of testing or measuring procedures; obviously they are useful." What Congress forbade was "giving these devices and mechanisms controlling force unless they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance." The sentence most often quoted from the case states the standard: "What Congress has commanded is that any tests used must measure the person for the job and not the person in the abstract."

What this gives a candidate is not a right to a score or a second attempt but a standard that binds the employer: a test that screens people out must be shown to be related to the job. The Court's own phrase, tests as "useful servants" that are not to become "masters of reality," is a fair way to hold a hiring test in mind.

4 What Do the Uniform Guidelines and the EEOC Require of Employers?

The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (29 CFR part 1607) turn Griggs into a working rule: if a test selects the members of a race, sex or ethnic group at a much lower rate than another group, the employer must be able to show that the test is valid for the job. Federal agencies adopted the guidelines on August 25, 1978 (43 Federal Register 38295), and the version on the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) that we read on October 29, 2026 notes an amendment on December 31, 1981. They apply to any selection procedure used as a basis for making employment decisions, so a cognitive test sits squarely inside them.

Four provisions do most of the work. Section 1607.4A says each user "should maintain and have available for inspection records or other information which will disclose the impact" of its tests on employment opportunities by identifiable race, sex or ethnic group. Section 1607.4D states the best known rule of thumb: "A selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty percent) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded by the Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact." Smaller differences can still constitute adverse impact when they are significant in both statistical and practical terms, so four-fifths is a signal and not a safe harbor. Section 1607.3A says a procedure with adverse impact is considered discriminatory "unless the procedure has been validated in accordance with these guidelines," and section 1607.5A lets a user rely on criterion-related, content or construct validity studies.

For the candidate this means the employer, not you, carries the documentation burden, and the documentation is about groups. The federal retention rule, 29 CFR 1602.14, requires an employer to preserve hiring records, including application forms, for one year from the date of the record or the personnel action, whichever is later, and relevant records, including "test papers completed by an unsuccessful applicant," until a discrimination charge or action is finally decided. It is a rule about preserving evidence, not about showing it to you.

The EEOC's technical assistance document Employment Tests and Selection Procedures (issue date December 1, 2007, read October 29, 2026) sets out how the agency reads these rules. It says Title VII permits employment tests as long as they are not "designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin," and that employers may not adjust the scores of, use different cutoff scores for, or otherwise alter the results of employment-related tests on those grounds. It notes that finding disparate impact ordinarily requires a statistical analysis and says an employer can meet the job-related standard "by showing that it is necessary to the safe and efficient performance of the job."

One example shows that a validation study is not a permanent shield. EEOC v. Ford Motor Co. involved a court approved settlement for a nationwide class of African American applicants rejected for an apprenticeship program after a written cognitive test, the Apprenticeship Training Selection System, which measured verbal, numerical and spatial reasoning. The EEOC says the test had been validated in 1991 but continued to have a statistically significant disparate impact, and that Ford agreed to replace it and paid 8.55 million dollars in relief. A settlement is not a finding of liability; we cite it as the agency's own illustration.

5 What Does the ADA Say About Accommodations on a Hiring Test?

For a candidate with a disability, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires the employer to give a test in a way that measures the ability the test is for and not the disability, and to make reasonable accommodations in test administration for known limitations unless that would impose an undue hardship. The EEOC document above lists three ADA duties, each with its statutory citation: not to use tests that screen out or tend to screen out people with disabilities unless the test is job-related and consistent with business necessity (42 U.S.C. 12112(b)(6)); to administer tests so that results accurately reflect the skill or aptitude measured "rather than reflecting an applicant's or employee's impairment" (12112(b)(7)); and to make reasonable accommodations, "including in the administration of tests," to the known limitations of an otherwise qualified applicant, unless that imposes an undue hardship (12112(b)(5)).

The regulation behind the second duty, 29 CFR 1630.11 (eCFR, read October 29, 2026), is narrower in its wording. It requires tests to be administered so that, for an applicant whose disability impairs sensory, manual or speaking skills, the results reflect the skill or aptitude the test purports to measure "rather than reflecting the impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills," except where those skills are what the test purports to measure. The accommodation duty in 12112(b)(5) is the broader one and covers mental limitations too.

The EEOC document gives one concrete example. In EEOC v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., applicants with learning disabilities needed reading accommodations on a pre-employment test for hourly, unskilled manufacturing jobs, and the settlement gave twelve identified individuals relief and the chance to take the test with a reader, and required a reasonable accommodation for each applicant who requested a reader and documented an ADA disability: a reader for all instructions and written parts, or an audiotape providing the same information. It is one case, and the sources we read do not list what a given employer must grant for a given condition; that is a question for the employer, the publisher and, if disputed, a lawyer or the agency.

The practical rule that follows from the word "known" is to ask early and in writing. The Wonderlic candidate FAQ gives the publisher's version: testing accommodations are provided by the prospective employer, so the candidate contacts the hiring organization directly, gives as much information as possible, including any documentation, and the employer consults Wonderlic about what, if any, accommodation is appropriate. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing state the purpose: Standard 3.9 calls for accommodations, when appropriate and feasible, "to remove construct-irrelevant barriers that otherwise would interfere with examinees' ability to demonstrate their standing on the target constructs." The page on IQ testing for adults with ADHD takes up what a clock does to adults with attention differences.

6 What Does UK Equality Law Say About Reasonable Adjustments in Recruitment?

In Great Britain the Equality Act 2010 requires an employer to make reasonable adjustments so that a disabled candidate is not put at a substantial disadvantage by the recruitment process, and a timed test is part of that process. The government's guidance page Reasonable adjustments for workers with disabilities or health conditions, which we read on October 29, 2026, lists among the examples of reasonable adjustments "changing the recruitment process so a candidate can be considered for a job doing things another way," and points readers to a Disability Employment Adviser at a local Jobcentre Plus office and to the Access to Work scheme for advice and help.

The statute gives the structure. Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 (read on legislation.gov.uk, October 29, 2026) says the first requirement applies where "a provision, criterion or practice" of the employer puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled, and requires the steps it is reasonable to have to take to avoid the disadvantage. The third requires reasonable steps to provide an auxiliary aid, and where either relates to information, the steps include providing it in an accessible format. The employer cannot require the disabled person to pay any of the costs. Our reading, not a quotation from a court, is that an employer's test and its time limit are a provision, criterion or practice, and that a reader, an audio version or a changed format can be the steps in question.

Two other provisions decide how this works in practice. The first is knowledge. Schedule 8 of the Act, paragraph 20, says the employer is not subject to the duty if it does not know, and could not reasonably be expected to know, that a disabled person is or may be an applicant, or, in the cases the Schedule covers, that the person has a disability and is likely to be placed at the disadvantage. The plain consequence is the same as in the American sources: the duty depends on the employer being able to know, so tell the recruiter in time to arrange the adjustment.

The second is the limit on health questions. Section 60 of the Act, headed "Enquiries about disability and health," says an employer to whom an application for work is made must not ask about the health of the applicant before offering work, or before including the applicant in a pool from which it intends to select, and it lists exceptions. One is a question necessary for "establishing whether B will be able to comply with a requirement to undergo an assessment or establishing whether a duty to make reasonable adjustments is or will be imposed on A in relation to B in connection with a requirement to undergo an assessment." A recruiter who asks whether you need adjustments for the online test is therefore within the section. The ban is enforceable only by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Act sections we read are marked as applying in England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own disability discrimination law, which we did not read, and the GOV.UK page points readers there to separate pages.

7 Who Sees Your Score, and Can You Ask for It?

The employer sees your result at once, and whether you can obtain it depends on where you live: the sources we read show no general right in the United States, while in the United Kingdom the right of access lets you ask an employer for the personal information it holds about you, which should include what it recorded in recruitment. The two answers are best taken separately.

In the United States, the clearest statement comes from the publisher of the best known employer test. The Wonderlic candidate FAQ says that "prospective employers have immediate access to your testing results at the conclusion of the assessment, but prevailing laws generally do not require prospective employers to share results with candidates." The only results available to applicants are a Candidate Feedback Report reached through a link shown when the assessment ends, "traditional numerical scores for the cognitive portion" are not available, and a candidate who does not receive the link has no report. That is a vendor's statement about its own product and about the law, and we cite it as such.

The professional standards explain why this is common. Standard 8.8 of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing says that when scores are used to make decisions about a test taker, the test taker "should have timely access to a copy of any report of test scores and test interpretation," unless that right "has been waived explicitly in the test taker's informed consent document or implicitly through the application procedure in education, credentialing, or employment testing or is prohibited by law or court order." Its comment adds that in employment testing, "when test results are used solely for the purpose of aiding selection decisions, waivers of access are often a condition of employment applications, although access to test information may often be appropriately required in other circumstances."

The federal rules we read do not change that picture: the Uniform Guidelines and 29 CFR 1602.14 require records, not disclosure to the applicant. State privacy law we did not survey. The California Attorney General's CCPA page (updated August 28, 2026, read October 29, 2026) lists a consumer's right to know about the personal information a business collects, and its FAQ says the exemptions for employment-related personal information expired on December 31, 2022. It does not mention job applicants by name, so whether that right reaches a hiring test score in your state is a question for the state attorney general or a lawyer.

In the United Kingdom the starting point is the right of access, also called a subject access request. The ICO's right of access guidance (last updated December 8, 2025, read October 29, 2026) says it gives people "the right to obtain a copy of their personal information" from an organisation, together with supplementary information such as the purposes of the processing, the recipients, how long it will be kept, the right to complain to the ICO and whether automated decision-making is used. The ICO's questions and answers for employers say a worker's request must be answered without delay and within one month, extendable by up to two months if complex, and that no format is required, so it can be made verbally. Those pages are written about workers; the ICO guidance on recruitment was still a draft when we read it.

That draft speaks to candidates directly. It reminds employers that "the candidate can make a SAR for any additional information you record in the interview (eg interview notes)," and its example of an airport using psychometric testing and interviews says that in setting retention periods the airport considers that "candidates may request their information." Our reading is that a test result attached to your name is personal information about you, so a request for it falls within the right, subject to exemptions such as the one protecting information about other people. The draft does not say what a particular vendor must disclose, and the ICO draft pages carry a notice that, because of changes made by the Data (Use and Access) Act, the guidance is under review and may change.

If a test alone could reject you, a second right applies. The ICO draft on automated decision-making in recruitment says people have the right to challenge any solely automated recruitment decision that significantly affects them and to request human intervention, and that the safeguards must at the very least include obtaining human intervention, expressing a point of view and challenging the decision. A request can be one sentence: please send me a copy of my personal information relating to my application, including assessment results, scores and any interview notes.

8 What Does an Employer's Cognitive Test Measure, and How Well Does It Predict?

An employer's cognitive test samples a narrow slice of general ability under time pressure, and the research says selection procedures in general predict job performance less strongly than older estimates claimed, while cognitive tests also produce group score differences that employment law then has to manage. Three questions are folded into that sentence, and the sources answer them separately.

What it measures. The page about what IQ measures sets out the general factor, g, and the broad abilities beneath it that the CHC model names: Gf (fluid reasoning), Gc (comprehension knowledge), Gq (quantitative reasoning), Gv (visual processing), Gwm (working memory) and Gs (processing speed). By the publisher's own list, the Wonderlic cognitive section leans on language, simple math, logic, pattern and spatial items; the list does not name working memory, and what the test records about speed is entangled with the clock. A reader who wants to see single abilities as separate measurements can read the format descriptions of Matrix Reasoning for Gf, Coding for Gs and Digit Span for Gwm, each of which describes its own task and not an employer's.

How well it predicts. Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens (2022) revisited meta-analytic validity estimates for selection procedures in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Their abstract concludes that five common approaches to correcting for range restriction each "has significant issues that often result in substantial overcorrection," so that the validity of many procedures was overestimated; most procedures that ranked high before remain high "with mean validity estimates reduced by .10-.20 points," structured interviews emerged as the top-ranked procedure, and "our selection procedures remain useful, but selection predictor-criterion relationships are considerably lower than previously thought." The paper also pairs validity with mean Black-White subgroup differences to show validity-diversity tradeoffs. The page on IQ and job performance owns the validity evidence in full; the practical reading is that a cognitive test is one input and an employer who treats a twelve minute number as a verdict goes beyond what the research supports. Standard 11.1 of the Standards asks for "a clear statement of the intended interpretations of test scores for specified uses" before an employment test is implemented.

Why group differences reach the law. Roth, Bevier, Bobko, Switzer and Tyler (2001) meta-analyzed ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment and educational settings in Personnel Psychology. Their abstract reports that a one standard deviation difference "accurately summarizes" Black-White mean differences for college application tests and for overall analyses of tests of g for job applicants in corporate settings, that job complexity, study design, applicant versus incumbent samples and the construct measured moderate the size, that in many instances the differences are less than one standard deviation, and that Hispanic-White differences are somewhat less. That is the background to the four-fifths rule: used as a cutoff, a difference between group means can become a large difference in selection rates. It describes groups, not any person, and says nothing about why the differences arise; the page on whether IQ tests are biased takes that question on.

If your own question is what kind of work suits your profile, and not whether to pass a screening step, the page on IQ tests for career guidance is the better starting point, because it addresses what a correlation of that size leaves out for one person.

9 How Should an Adult Approach a Cognitive Test for a Job?

Treat an employer test as a standardized, timed, often unproctored task whose result you may never see: arrange the conditions, ask for any accommodation before the day, and remember that a familiar format helps a little and the ability is what it is. The evidence on practice is specific, and it is more useful than the confident claims of sellers.

Hausknecht, Halpert, Di Paolo and Moriarty Gerrard (2007) summarized practice and coaching effects in a meta-analysis in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Their abstract notes that previous studies indicated that as many as 25 percent to 50 percent of applicants in organizational and educational settings are retested, and that results from 107 samples and 134,436 participants in 50 studies "revealed an adjusted overall effect size of .26." Effects were larger when practice was accompanied by test coaching and when identical forms were used. Read as a standardized difference, that is about 4 points on a scale with a standard deviation of 15 (our arithmetic, not the authors'), an average across samples and not a promise for any person. The abstract does not say what produced the improvement, so it cannot tell you how a particular employer treats a retest. The page on how to prepare for an IQ test weighs what helps and what hurts in general terms, and the guide to pre-employment tests owns the preparation advice for specific formats.

Four practical points follow.

1. Find out the rules before you start. The Wonderlic FAQ says links expire, that the employer controls reinvitation, and that candidates are not expected to finish every cognitive question; its advice is not to spend too much time on single questions and not to skip around hoping to return.
2. Do not pay for the employer's test. Wonderlic says there is no cost to test takers and that anyone asked to pay is likely dealing with an unaffiliated practice seller. Practice material can show you a format, but it is not the employer's test and it is not an IQ test.
3. Set the room. Standard 6.4 of the Standards asks that the testing environment furnish reasonable comfort with minimal distractions to avoid construct-irrelevant variance; for a home test that responsibility passes to you: a quiet room, a charged device, a stable connection and the invitation window planned.
4. Know what nerves can do to a result. The page on anxiety and IQ sets out what the research reports and how the answer depends on study design, a good reason to treat one timed result as a sample and not a verdict.

10 How Can an Adult Learn Their Own Cognitive Profile Privately?

An adult who wants to know their own profile can use a psychologist administered battery or a normed online one, and the right framing is private self-knowledge before or after an interview, never a document for an employer and never preparation for an employer's test. The first table above compares the options. The decision comes down to what you need the number for.

If you need a document that others will accept, such as a formal assessment tied to a diagnosis, an accommodation request or a legal matter, a licensed psychologist giving an individually administered battery is the route, and ACIS says it is not intended for clinical diagnosis or accommodation determinations. The page on where to take an IQ test lays out every option, in person and online, and says honestly how to choose for your reason.

If you want to know your own standing and strengths for yourself, a normed online battery is a route you can start at home, with real limits. ACIS is one such option. It reports a Full Scale IQ and six primary indices, VCI (verbal comprehension), FRI (fluid reasoning), QRI (quantitative reasoning), VSI (visual spatial), WMI (working memory) and PSI (processing speed), with percentiles and a 95 percent confidence interval. It comes in three forms, read on October 29, 2026 and subject to change:

• Quick, 15 dollars, 6 subtests in 3 domains, about 45 minutes.
• Optimized, 30 dollars, 13 subtests in 5 domains, about 110 minutes.
• Full Scale, 50 dollars, all 20 subtests in six domains, about 175 minutes.

Payment is one time, with no subscription. Breaks are allowed, progress is saved between subtests and the buyer has 30 days to finish. The free trial needs no card; the site allows one free trial per person, refusing a second from the same email address or browser, and subtests finished in the trial are kept if the person later unlocks a form that includes them. The pages on free IQ tests and on IQ testing for adults explain what the free start includes, the page on the ACIS cognitive ability test describes the battery as a whole, and the comparison of the best online IQ tests puts the alternatives side by side.

Three things deserve plain words, because this page is about hiring. ACIS is not an employer test, and nothing here suggests it resembles, prepares for or predicts one. It is not intended for hiring decisions, so it is not something to hand to a recruiter; the report belongs to you. And it is online and unsupervised, like Wonderlic Select, which is typically not proctored, but for a different purpose.

11 How Do You Read a Cognitive Test Score From Hiring?

A hiring score is a rank on a scale the vendor chose, so before comparing it with an IQ you need the scale, the comparison group and the margin of error, and the candidate's side of the process may show none of them. The Wonderlic FAQ shows how far an employer score can depart from an IQ style number: the current Select assessment combines cognitive ability, motivation and personality against the demands of the job, with no single cognitive number for the candidate.

An IQ, by contrast, is a standard score. The usual convention, which ACIS also follows, puts the population mean at 100 and the standard deviation at 15, and the page on how IQ scores are normed explains how a norm group becomes a table. A percentile is a different statement, the share of the comparison group scoring at or below you, and the page on IQ score versus percentile explains why the two cannot be averaged or swapped. Neither one converts a Wonderlic or CCAT number into an IQ.

Precision is the third piece. Every score is an estimate with error, and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing speak to the cut-score case that matters to a candidate. Standard 2.14 says: "Where cut scores are specified for selection or classification, the standard errors of measurement should be reported in the vicinity of each cut score." Standard 5.21 asks that the rationale and procedures for establishing cut scores be documented clearly, and its comment says that even when a cut score only selects a fixed number of applicants for further screening, attention should be paid to the rationale for using the test and the precision of comparisons among examinees. Our reading is that two candidates on either side of a line can be closer together than the line suggests, and that a cut score tells you what the employer decided, not who is more able. What reliability and validity do and do not mean is set out on the page about reliability and validity.

Before comparing any hiring number with an IQ, name the scale, the group, the margin and the use, which Standard 11.1 asks the employer to state.

12 Where ACIS Sits, and What a Buyer Should Do

ACIS is a normed online battery for adults who are curious about their own cognitive profile, with real strengths and plain limits, and it is not an employer test, not a document for an employer and not preparation for one. The strengths are concrete. It offers a Full Scale IQ and six primary indices with percentiles and a 95 percent confidence interval, across six CHC domains in its Full Scale form, with breaks allowed, progress saved between subtests and 30 days to finish. Adult norms cover ages 16 to 90, and the technical manual documents the battery.

The limits are as concrete. ACIS is online and unsupervised, it is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument and it is English only. The technical manual says verbal and knowledge tasks are affected by English proficiency and educational exposure. Digit Span, Alphanumeric Sequencing and Arithmetic present their items as audio and need working sound. The site's research page says ACIS "is not intended for clinical diagnosis, hiring decisions, accommodation determinations or admission to high IQ societies," and that is the line this page keeps: an ACIS report is private self-knowledge, so do not send it to an employer, and it is not a conversion, a predictor or a rehearsal for any test an employer gives.

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) are the yardstick this page tries to meet, not an endorsement of ACIS. Standard 1.1 asks the developer to set forth clearly how scores are intended to be interpreted and used, and its comment says no test permits interpretations that are valid for all purposes or in all situations. Standard 1.4 says that if a score is interpreted for a use that has not been validated, "it is incumbent on the user to justify the new interpretation for that use." Standard 11.1 asks the same of an employment test before it is implemented, and Standard 8.8 explains why a candidate often does not see the result. The practical rule: use an employer test for the decision it was validated for, use an ACIS profile for understanding yourself, and for a document that others will rely on, such as a formal accommodation request, use a licensed psychologist.

A buyer should do this, in order:

1. Decide the question. If it is about an employer's test, read the invitation, ask the five questions above and request any accommodation in writing. If it is about documentation, start with a licensed psychologist. If it is personal curiosity, continue.
2. Pick the form that fits. Quick for a first look, Optimized for a broader profile, Full Scale for all six indices and a Full Scale IQ from all 20 subtests.
3. Start with the free trial. It needs no card and shows the format before anything is spent.
4. Set up the room. Quiet, working sound, a rested start and a plan for breaks.
5. Read the report as one source. Keep the confidence interval in view, look at the index profile and not only the total, and do not use the number for a decision it cannot support. The ACIS guarantee reads: "Full refund within 5 days if the report does not deliver the features described at checkout or a technical issue prevents you from accessing your results."

13 Sources Behind This Page

Every fact above is traceable to one of the following, and each is linked at the point where it is used. Web pages were opened on October 29, 2026 and prices can change. Any figure we derived ourselves is labeled in the text as our arithmetic.

• Supreme Court of the United States. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424. Argued December 14, 1970, decided March 8, 1971, as published by Cornell Legal Information Institute, read October 29, 2026.
• Federal agencies. Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 29 CFR part 1607. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, adopted August 25, 1978, read October 29, 2026.
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. 29 CFR 1630.11, Administration of tests and 29 CFR 1602.14, Preservation of records made or kept. eCFR, read October 29, 2026.
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employment Tests and Selection Procedures. Technical assistance document, issue date December 1, 2007, read October 29, 2026.
• Government of the United Kingdom. Reasonable adjustments for workers with disabilities or health conditions. GOV.UK, read October 29, 2026.
• United Kingdom Parliament. Equality Act 2010, section 20, section 60 and Schedule 8. legislation.gov.uk, read October 29, 2026.
• Information Commissioner's Office. Right of access guidance (updated December 8, 2025) and Subject access request questions and answers for employers. ICO, read October 29, 2026.
• Information Commissioner's Office. Employment practices and data protection: recruitment and selection, draft guidance, including the chapters on shortlisting, testing and interviewing, on keeping recruitment records and on automated decision-making. ICO, consultation closed, read October 29, 2026.
• Wonderlic. Wonderlic Select cognitive ability test and Wonderlic Select frequently asked questions from candidates. Publisher pages, read October 29, 2026.
• Pearson TalentLens. Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal. Publisher product page, read October 29, 2026.
• Pearson Assessments. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (WAIS-5) product page. Age range, completion times, qualification level and publication date, read October 29, 2026.
• California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Page updated August 28, 2026, read October 29, 2026.
• Sackett P, Zhang C, Berry C, Lievens F. Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection: Addressing systematic overcorrection for restriction of range. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2022, volume 107, issue 11, pages 2040 to 2068.
• Roth P, Bevier C, Bobko P, Switzer F, Tyler P. Ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment and educational settings: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 2001, volume 54, issue 2, pages 297 to 330.
• Hausknecht J, Halpert J, Di Paolo N, Moriarty Gerrard M. Retesting in selection: A meta-analysis of coaching and practice effects for tests of cognitive ability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007, volume 92, issue 2, pages 373 to 385.
• American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association and National Council on Measurement in Education. Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, 2014. Standards 1.1, 1.4, 2.14, 3.9, 5.21, 6.4, 8.2, 8.8, 11.1 and 11.4, read in the open access edition.

14 Frequently Asked Questions