What an SHL test really is and what you get back

0 The short answer

An SHL test is not one test: SHL is a publisher whose catalog spans cognitive ability tests (the Verify range), personality and motivation questionnaires, situational judgement tests, skills simulations and video interviews, and the employer that invites you decides which of them you sit. On the SHL fact sheets we opened on October 29, 2026, the Verify ability tests allow 4 to 36 minutes, are timed, are designed for unsupervised use, and several are followed by a shorter supervised verification test, while SHL support says it sets no pass mark and does not give results to candidates, so the score goes to the employer. ACIS is not an SHL test and gives no SHL score; it is a way to see your own adult normed profile of the same broad abilities, with Quick at 15 dollars and about 45 minutes, Optimized at 30 dollars and about 110 minutes, and Full Scale at 50 dollars and about 175 minutes (prices read October 29, 2026). The decisive limit is that an ACIS report does not predict or prepare you for an SHL result, and it is not meant for an employer.

1 What Is an SHL Test, and What Does SHL Actually Sell?

"SHL test" is shorthand for whatever assessment from the SHL catalog an employer has chosen for you, so the phrase names a publisher and not a single exam. SHL's assessments page, which we opened on October 29, 2026, sorts its portfolio into behavioral, personality, cognitive, and skills and simulation assessments, and the products menu on SHL's products page adds video interviews. The same menu names the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ), the Motivational Questionnaire (MQ), the Global Skills Assessment (GSA), Job-Focused Assessments, Situational Judgment Tests (SJT), SHL Verify and SHL 360. The cognitive family is the one most people mean when they search for the "SHL test", and it is the subject of most of this page, but the other families explain why two candidates can both say they took "the SHL test" and have sat completely different things.

The other families are easy to describe from the publisher's pages. SHL's personality page lists the OPQ, which it describes as aligning individual working preferences with business requirements, and the MQ, which covers individual motivation. It says the assessments are online and mobile first, that optional remote proctoring is available, and that automated reports exist for participants and for managers. SHL's behavioral page describes the GSA as measuring 96 behavioral skills in 15 minutes and describes situational judgement tests as interactive scenarios that measure behavioral fit with a role, with a match score used to show how a candidate will likely perform. Neither page states a validity coefficient, and the descriptions of benefit on both are the publisher's own statements, which this page reports as claims. The page on how IQ and personality relate explains why a personality questionnaire and a cognitive ability test sample different things and should not be read as versions of one another.

Where the cognitive family sits in a hiring process is the employer's decision, not SHL's. Employers decide how to use these tests, and SHL's own sample report says results should be used as part of a broader evaluation of a person's suitability. That general picture, including why employers use cognitive screening at all and how other publishers format theirs, belongs to the page on pre-employment cognitive tests, and this page does not repeat it. Two other publishers have their own pages here: the Korn Ferry test page covers that publisher's assessments and the CCAT page covers the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test. What SHL adds is a very large catalog: its cognitive assessments page states that more than 2,500 clients use its cognitive assessments, which is the publisher's own figure and not an independent count.

2 Which Ability Tests Does SHL List, and How Do They Differ?

SHL lists a dozen ability tests under the Verify name in the documents we opened, and its fact sheets differ most in the number of questions, the time allowed and whether a verification test follows. The table uses only what each SHL document says. Every fact sheet was opened on October 29, 2026; the year in brackets is the copyright year printed on the document, and the Verify range has been revised since some of them were written. None of the fact sheets prints a reliability coefficient, a validity coefficient or a description of its norm group. Each includes a worked example question, and we describe none of them.

Three cautions keep the table honest. First, the list is not a menu you choose from. The employer picks the tests, and a given job might use one, several or a battery such as G+. Second, SHL's support pages include a notice that some legacy Verify tests would be retired "during 2024", and its table of replacements lists Verify Verbal Reasoning among the retired tests, with Verify Verbal Ability and the two deductive tests named as replacement options, so a fact sheet from 2018 describes the product as it was then. The same notice lists a 2010 Mechanical Comprehension test replaced by a 2014 one. We read that notice on SHL's support site on October 29, 2026. Third, the Mechanical Comprehension row comes from a catalog entry for a different platform's customers and gives no question count or time, so the cells say so.

The fact sheets also place each test at a job level. The numerical, deductive and inductive interactive tests are described as used for mid-level or mid-to-senior positions, the calculation test as suited to entry-level jobs, the checking test as used for lower-level jobs, and the verbal reasoning, verbal ability and spatial tests as relevant to all levels. The two format-specific siblings on this site go deeper than a catalog can. The page on the numerical reasoning test covers the numerical format across publishers, and the page on the inductive reasoning test covers pattern-based reasoning tasks. This page stays with SHL as a publisher.

3 How Are SHL Ability Tests Delivered: Timed, Adaptive and Unsupervised?

SHL designs most of its ability tests to be taken online, by invitation, under a time limit, without a person watching, and several choose each question from the answers before it. Every fact sheet in the table above lists a fixed time allowed, and every one lists "Yes" against the design for an unsupervised or unproctored environment. The interactive fact sheets add that the tests are built "mobile-first" so that they can run on any device type, including mobile phones. The Verify Interactive G+, Numerical Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning and Deductive Reasoning sheets all state that the test uses computer adaptive technology, and say this brings shorter administration, the ability to offer the test unsupervised and a more precise score. The Verbal Reasoning and Checking sheets say instead that the test uses item response theory. The Spatial Ability sheet says that, because it uses computer adaptive technology, the test is suitable for unsupervised assessment.

Adaptive delivery changes what the number of questions means. When each question is chosen from earlier answers, two candidates can see different questions, which is part of how a test of 10 to 24 questions can be reported on a common scale and part of how the item bank is protected from memorization. The page on how adaptive IQ tests choose items and when they stop explains the mechanics and the trade-offs, and the main point for a candidate is simple. A maximum of 24 questions on a fact sheet is a ceiling, not the number you will necessarily see, and none of the fact sheets we opened states a stopping rule. SHL's cognitive assessments page adds that its cognitive assessments are automated, remotely proctored and ask fewer questions because of what it calls a partial-scoring methodology. That page does not say how often remote proctoring is switched on, so we do not assume it applies to every sitting.

SHL's candidate support pages describe the practical side. On its page about timing and submission, read on October 29, 2026, SHL says candidates doing a numerical or calculation test may use a calculator unless told otherwise, that a time limit may make a dictionary inadvisable on a verbal test, that paper and a pencil can be useful, and that every assessment opens with instructions and an example screenshot that cannot be answered. It also says that if a technical problem occurs, SHL support cannot reset a completed test without authorization, and that the candidate needs to ask the company whether it will allow a reset.

Unsupervised delivery is the central design choice, and it has a research literature. In a 2006 article in Personnel Psychology, Tippins and six colleagues explored the pros and cons of unproctored internet testing in employment. Their abstract lists the advantages as cost and convenience, and the problems as hardware and software issues and concerns about test content security, candidate identity and cheating. The International Test Commission's guidelines on computer-based and internet delivered testing, which we read in the final version 1.0 posted by the ITC, define four modes: open (no supervision and no way to authenticate the test taker), controlled (no direct supervision, but available only to known test takers who typically receive a login), supervised (direct oversight, with identity authenticated) and managed (a high level of control, as in a testing center). Reading SHL's candidate pages against those definitions, an invitation link sent by the employer fits the controlled mode; that classification is our reading, not an SHL statement. The same ITC document says test publishers should document the level of supervision expected and that psychometric tests used after an initial screening normally would not be available in open mode.

Why unsupervised delivery matters for score quality is the subject of the page on data quality in unsupervised online cognitive testing, which covers the meta-analytic evidence on unproctored scores, and this page does not repeat it. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014), which we read in the open access edition, say in their chapter on fairness that unproctored test administrations where standardization cannot be ensured could provide an advantage to some test takers over others, and that in such situations results should be interpreted with caution. The chapter on psychological testing adds that the interpreter of the test results should be informed if a test was unproctored. That second requirement explains why SHL builds a second step into some of its tests, which is the next section.

4 What Is the SHL Verification Test, and What Does "Not Verified" Mean?

Verification is a second, shorter, supervised test that an employer can use to check an unsupervised result, and it is the employer's choice whether to use it. Four of the fact sheets in the table list "One plus Verification test" among their sittings: Verify Deductive Reasoning, Verify Verbal Reasoning, Verify Spatial Ability and Verify Checking. The Verify G+ sheet lists no sittings at all, and the Verify Interactive sheets list one sitting and do not mention a verification test. So the verification step belongs to particular products and to particular employer decisions, and a candidate cannot infer its presence or its absence from the name of the test.

The best description in SHL's own documents is a sample candidate report, the Verify Ability Test Report dated September 27, 2018, which we opened on October 29, 2026. It is a sample with an invented candidate, so it shows the format and not any real result. It states that if the tests were unsupervised there is a small possibility that the scores do not represent the person's actual level of ability, and that a verification test is recommended. It says the verification test is shorter than the original ability test, must be given in a supervised setting, and will determine whether the result of the ability test is "Verified" or "Not Verified", and that a verified result can be used with confidence. It calls a supervised verification test the most consistent way to verify the original results and says this is strongly recommended. The documents we opened do not describe how the two results are compared or what makes a result "Not Verified", so this page does not either.

The report also lists alternatives that need no second test: results from other competency assessments, structured interviewing techniques, and attainment evidence such as examinations, qualifications and grades. It closes by saying the final decision on how to confirm results should follow the employer's internal policies and should weigh risk, cost and time. That sentence matters for a candidate because it shows who is deciding. SHL recommends verification; the employer decides whether to buy it, schedule it and act on it.

The logic is the one the research literature gives. The abstract of the Tippins and colleagues article lists test content security, candidate identity and cheating among the concerns of unproctored internet testing, and a supervised check addresses identity and consistency in a way that an unsupervised sitting cannot. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) say in Standard 6.6 that reasonable efforts should be made to ensure the integrity of test scores by eliminating opportunities to attain scores by fraudulent or deceptive means, and that where results may have important consequences, score integrity should be supported through active efforts to prevent, detect and correct such scores.

For an honest candidate the practical reading is calm. A verification test, if it comes, is a shorter supervised test of the same kind of ability, and a gap between an unsupervised and a supervised score has many possible sources, from fatigue to a noisy room. The page on reliability and validity explains why any single score carries some error. What would be unwise is to treat the first sitting as a rehearsal, because SHL's support pages say a completed test cannot be reset without the company's authorization.

5 How Do Results Reach the Employer, and What Does SHL Tell Candidates?

SHL's own support pages say the results go to a named person at the employer, that SHL support cannot give them to you, and that any feedback is at the employer's discretion. The relevant pages are in SHL's candidate help center, which we opened on October 29, 2026. In its articles on deadlines and results, SHL says that once you have finished, the company is notified that your results are ready and that, to keep them confidential, only the person chosen as the results recipient at that company has access. For that reason SHL support cannot provide them, though it can confirm whether you completed your tests, and it tells candidates to contact the company for feedback, adding that the extent of feedback is at the company's discretion. A second article says that if the company has not received your results, the recruiter should ask SHL technical support, and it adds a sentence that leaves no room for doubt: "We do not provide test results directly to candidates."

A separate article, on whether you can have your assessment results, gives the reason. It says your employer, or potential employer, is the controller of your personal data, and that SHL's client contracts bar it from releasing candidate results unless the client gives specific permission. The same help center sets out two further points. SHL says it does not set any passing score for its tests and refers candidates to their recruiter, so a pass mark is a rule the employer writes, not a property of the test. And if you have several assessments in one invitation, results are not processed until all of them are complete, and SHL's platforms do not send completion e-mails, so a green tick beside each assessment is the signal that you are done.

This design has two consequences for you. The first is that the question many candidates ask, "what score did I get?", is answered by the employer or not at all. A polite written request to the recruiter is the route SHL itself points to, and it is reasonable to ask what kind of feedback, if any, the company gives. The second is that what the employer receives may not be only a cognitive score. SHL's cognitive page says the Verify Interactive scores, combined with other SHL data such as behavior and personality assessments, produce a "well-rounded job score" for each candidate. That is a statement of the publisher's product design, and what any given employer does with a score, including whether it applies a cut score, is not something SHL's pages tell us.

Candidate-facing transparency is a known principle in testing standards. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) say in Standard 8.2 that test takers should be given in advance as much information about the test, the testing process, the intended use, scoring criteria and confidentiality protection as is consistent with obtaining valid responses and making appropriate interpretations. Standard 6.10 says that when scores are released, the interpretation should be appropriate to the audience and should describe in simple language what the test covers, what the scores represent, their precision and how they are intended to be used. Whether an employer meets that standard is a fair question to put to a recruiter.

6 How Do You Read an SHL Style Score: Percentile, T-Score, Sten and Hit Rate?

An SHL ability result is a position inside a named comparison group, expressed as a percentile, with a T-score and a sten for trained users, so what it tells you depends entirely on who the group is. The sample report shows the layout. For each test it names the level (for example Graduate/University or Operational), the language (English International) and a comparison group labeled with a year, such as "General Population 2007". The report shows the percentile as a bar and in words, as better than a stated share of the group. The report's technical page adds a T-score, which SHL defines as a standardized score with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, and a sten, defined as a score on a 10 point scale with a mean of 5.5 and a standard deviation of 2. It also lists, for each test, the number of questions attempted, a work rate and a hit rate, which in the sample are expressed as a count out of the number attempted. The sample report does not say who is in each comparison group, and neither do the fact sheets, so the group label is all a reader has.

Those scales are all the same normal curve in different units. A mean of 100 with a standard deviation of 15 is the familiar IQ scale, a mean of 50 with a standard deviation of 10 is the T scale, and a percentile means the same thing on every one of them, the share of the comparison group scoring below. The table below converts a few T-scores into the IQ scale and into percentiles on an ideal normal curve. It is our arithmetic, not an SHL table, and the percentiles are idealized, because a real comparison group does not follow the curve exactly. Converting a scale is not converting a test: a T-score from an SHL test and an IQ from a different test come from different tasks and different groups and cannot be exchanged.

The page on how IQ scores are normed explains why every score is a position within a reference group, and the page on why the standard deviation is 15 explains the scale. The page on IQ scores versus percentiles explains why the two cannot be averaged, and an IQ percentile calculator converts a standard score into a percentile on the same ideal curve.

Two cautions apply to short adaptive tests. First, precision. Standard 6.10 says interpretations should describe the precision or reliability of scores, yet none of the SHL fact sheets we opened prints a reliability coefficient or a standard error. A reader cannot tell from them how wide the band around a 12 question score would be, and a prudent reading treats a single test result as an estimate, not as a fixed fact. Second, the work rate and hit rate show something a percentile hides: whether a person attempted everything and how many attempts were right. The documents we opened do not say how an employer uses them.

7 What Does SHL Claim About Validity, and What Does Independent Research Say?

SHL's pages claim that cognitive ability tests predict work performance, and none of the pages we opened prints a validity coefficient, so the evidence for the claim has to come from independent research on cognitive ability tests in general. The claims are easy to find. The interactive fact sheets describe the suite as offering an approach to "predict workplace performance." The sample report says that cognitive ability is the most effective single predictor of future performance in many different jobs, and in the same paragraph says that many other factors also play an important role and that the information should be used as part of a broader evaluation of suitability. The cognitive page says SHL's assessments aim to help teams make fair and efficient talent choices. Those are the publisher's statements. The product-level evidence they imply, such as a validity study of one SHL test against one job outcome, is not on the pages we opened.

Independent research addresses the general question. In a UK meta-analysis in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Bertua, Anderson and Salgado reported a database of 283 independent samples with job performance as the criterion (13,262 people) and 223 with training success as the criterion (75,311 people). Their abstract says general mental ability and specific ability tests, including verbal, numerical, perceptual and spatial tests, were valid predictors of both outcomes, with operational validities in the magnitude of .5 to .6, and that validities were larger for occupational families with greater job complexity. Those figures are corrected estimates, and the correction is now contested. In a 2022 paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens argued that earlier meta-analyses overcorrected for restriction of range. Their abstract says the revised validity estimates for most selection procedures are lower than before by .10 to .20 on average, that the procedures remain useful, and that predictor and criterion relationships are "considerably lower than previously thought." Read together, the two papers say that ability tests predict job outcomes, that the best-known coefficients are probably too high, and that the complexity of the job matters. The page on IQ and job performance covers that literature in full.

A meta-analysis of cognitive tests does not validate a particular product. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) put the burden on the specific use. Standard 11.1 says that before an employment test is developed and implemented there should be a clear statement of the intended interpretations of scores for specified uses, and that validation should determine how well this has been achieved for all relevant subgroups. Standard 11.12 says that when selection relies on a relationship between a predictor construct and a criterion, two links need evidence: that the scores are reliable and the content samples the predictor domain, and that the predictor domain relates to major factors of the criterion. A fair summary: cognitive ability tests as a class have a substantial evidence base, SHL says its tests belong to that class, and product-level documentation sits in SHL's technical materials, which we did not open.

8 Which Broad Abilities Do SHL's Test Families Sample, in CHC Terms?

SHL's ability tests sample single broad abilities, and in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model they fall mostly under fluid reasoning (Gf), crystallized knowledge (Gc), quantitative knowledge (Gq), visual processing (Gv) and processing speed (Gs), with mechanical comprehension having no counterpart in the ACIS battery. SHL's fact sheets describe tasks and job skills in the publisher's own terms and not in CHC terms, so the labels below are our mapping, offered so that a reader can see which broad ability a test is sampling. The page on the CHC model explains the model, and the page on the cognitive domains in IQ testing shows how ACIS groups its 20 subtests into six domains.

• Numerical. SHL's interactive numerical reasoning sheet describes making inferences from numerical or statistical data in a workplace context, and its calculation sheet describes order of operations and spotting calculation errors. The first leans toward quantitative reasoning and the second toward quantitative knowledge. The page on the quantitative reasoning test explains why the two are different abilities with one name, and the ACIS Quantitative Reasoning Index is built from Mathematical Achievement and Arithmetic (see the Arithmetic subtest page), the latter presenting its items as audio and so needing working sound.
• Verbal. SHL's verbal reasoning sheet describes reading a passage and judging a statement against it, and the verbal ability sheet describes comprehension, tone and author intent. That is acquired language knowledge applied to text, closest to Gc. The page on the verbal IQ test explains what a verbal score does and does not measure, and the ACIS Verbal Comprehension Index combines Antonyms, Vocabulary, Information, Synonyms and Similarities.
• Inductive and deductive. SHL describes inductive reasoning as inferring rules from shapes and alphanumeric sequences, and deductive reasoning as drawing conclusions from information given. Both sit within Gf. The ACIS Fluid Reasoning Index covers this area, and the Matrix Reasoning subtest page describes the nonverbal rule discovery task in CHC terms. The page on the abstract reasoning test explains why a timed pattern test is one domain and not an IQ.
• Spatial. SHL's spatial ability sheet describes perceiving and transforming visual shapes with no words, which is visual processing (Gv). The nearest ACIS domain is the Visual Spatial Index.
• Checking. SHL's checking test compares information quickly and accurately in a few minutes. The nearest broad ability is processing speed (Gs), and the page on the processing speed test shows how ACIS reports it.
• Mechanical comprehension. SHL describes an understanding of basic mechanical principles and their application to devices such as pulleys, gears and levers. ACIS has no subtest for it, and this page does not suggest a substitute.

Two points keep the mapping honest. First, a reasoning test is not an IQ test. G+ combines numerical, deductive and inductive questions into a general score, but even that is three samples of reasoning and not the full set of broad abilities a battery covers, and the SHL pages we opened do not present any Verify score as an IQ. Second, matching a label does not make two tasks equivalent: a hiring test and an ACIS index can both draw on quantitative ability while using different tasks, time limits, comparison groups and scoring.

9 Can You Practice for an SHL Test, and What Does Retest Research Show?

Practice can make you familiar with a format, and the research on retesting shows gains of modest size that come from familiarity and coaching and stop growing after the third sitting, so practice is not a way to raise the ability being measured. SHL itself offers practice. Its practice tests page, which we opened on October 29, 2026, lists about 20 practice tests covering situational judgement, general ability, verbal, numerical, deductive, inductive and mechanical formats, among others. It says they are intended to provide a similar testing experience in terms of question types and formats, warns that the difficulty of a practice test may not exactly reflect the difficulty of the real one, and forbids sharing your results with any third party. The page does not mention a fee. SHL's help center adds that results from a practice site are not shared with the company you are taking the real test for, and that the real test has its own instructions and example screen.

This page reproduces no question from SHL or from any practice provider, and it publishes no answers. The searches for "SHL test answers" and "SHL test examples" lead mostly to sellers and to forum threads, which are not sources about the test, and we do not link them. There are also good reasons to distrust any list of answers: the Verify Interactive tests choose items adaptively, so two candidates can see different questions; the ITC guidelines tell developers to contemplate delivery strategies that deter memorization and publishers to verify controls that reduce item exposure; and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) say in Standard 8.1 that information about test content and purposes available to any test taker beforehand should be available to all test takers.

What retesting does is measurable. In a 2007 meta-analysis in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Hausknecht, Halpert, Di Paolo and Moriarty Gerrard reported that estimates suggest 25 to 50 percent of applicants in organizational and educational settings are retested on cognitive ability measures, and that across 107 samples and 134,436 participants the adjusted overall effect size was .26. Their abstract says the effects were larger when practice included test coaching and when identical test forms were used. In a 2018 meta-analysis in Intelligence, Scharfen, Peters and Holling pooled 174 samples from 122 studies, with 786 test outcomes and 153,185 participants. They found significant retest effects, but scores stopped rising after the third administration, and the size of the effect varied with the type of cognitive operation and test content, the equivalence of the forms, the interval between tests and the age of the participants. The sibling page on numerical reasoning tests and retakes reads the same literature for one task family.

The honest candidate reading follows from the design of those studies. Gains from repeating a test are a property of the test and the person's familiarity with it, not evidence of a change in the ability, which is why a high score earned after repeated practice may overstate where you would land on a fresh form. A little format familiarity is reasonable, and it is what SHL's own practice page offers.

10 Which Real Options Show You a Profile of the Same Abilities?

The real options differ in who sees the result, what the score is compared with and whether anyone watches, and only some of them give you, the person tested, a profile you can keep. The table sets out the routes using only what the sources we opened state. Where a source printed no figure, the cell says so, and ACIS prices are those read on October 29, 2026, which can change.

Three readings follow. Only the SHL route can change a hiring outcome, and its result is not designed to reach you. A psychologist's battery is the route when others must rely on a score, and the page on every way to take an IQ test, in person and online lays out that route. If the goal is self-knowledge, a normed online battery gives you a profile you own: the page on the cognitive ability test covers the free and online route, the page on IQ tests for adults compares what an adult can take, and the free IQ test page covers the no card trial. None of them is an SHL test, and none changes how an employer reads an SHL result.

11 What Should You Do Before, During and After an SHL Test?

The most useful preparation is practical: use the link your employer sent you, check your device, create no duplicate accounts, work in a quiet place, follow the calculator rules in the instructions, and ask the recruiter in writing what feedback to expect. SHL's help center gives specific guidance on most of these points, and we read it on October 29, 2026. It says to use the original test link sent by the company, because registering more than once under different usernames can leave tests showing as incomplete. SHL's menu offers a Browser Check tool that verifies whether your device settings are compatible. Its help pages say you may use a calculator on numerical and calculation tests unless instructed otherwise, that paper and a pencil can help, and that the time limit may make a dictionary on a verbal test inadvisable.

During the test, the design of the product shapes the advice. On an adaptive test the next question depends on your earlier answers, so comparing notes with another candidate about how hard it felt tells you little, and the fact sheets say the design aims for a precise score from fewer questions. Most fact sheets list one sitting, so plan for an uninterrupted block of the stated time plus a margin for instructions.

If something goes wrong, SHL's pages say the company must authorize any reset of a completed test, and that SHL support cannot supply company contact details, so the invitation e-mail is the place to look. Report any interruption promptly and in writing.

Afterward, the practical step is to ask. A short written message to the recruiter that asks whether feedback is provided, and in what form, uses the route SHL's own pages describe. It is also reasonable to ask whether more than one SHL test is in the process, whether any follow-up test will be supervised, and how long the company keeps your results, which is the company's information to give and not SHL's. What you can do on your own, without anyone's permission, is learn about your own abilities in a setting designed for that purpose.

12 Where ACIS Sits, and What a Buyer Should Do

ACIS is not an SHL test and gives no SHL score; it is an online, self administered battery of 20 subtests that reports a Full Scale IQ and six indices on adult norms, and its honest use for someone invited to an SHL test is to see their own profile of the broad abilities such tests sample. The forms are Quick (6 subtests in 3 domains, about 45 minutes, 15 dollars), Optimized (13 subtests in 5 domains, about 110 minutes, 30 dollars) and Full Scale (all 20 subtests in six domains, about 175 minutes, 50 dollars), each a one time payment with no subscription, with breaks allowed, progress saved between subtests and 30 days to finish (prices read October 29, 2026; they can change). Every form reports a Full Scale IQ with its 95 percent confidence interval. The free trial needs no card, and the example reports show what each form prints. The refund wording at checkout is literal: "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."

The limits are as important as the offer. ACIS is online and unsupervised, as the SHL Verify tests are designed to be, so the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) apply to it in the way they apply to any unproctored test: the interpreter should be informed that it was unproctored, and results are to be read with that caution. It is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument. It is in English only, and the technical manual states that verbal and knowledge tasks are affected by English proficiency and educational exposure. On the research page, ACIS states that it "is not intended for clinical diagnosis, hiring decisions, accommodation determinations or admission to high IQ societies". That is why this page never suggests that an ACIS result should be sent to an employer, that it predicts how you will do on any employer test, or that practicing on it prepares you for one. Whether online batteries in general can be trusted, and what to look for, is the subject of the page on how accurate online IQ tests are, and the documentation for ACIS itself is in the technical manual.

The same principles govern how any score here should be read. The Standards say in Standard 6.10 that interpretations should describe what a test covers, what scores represent, their precision and how they are intended to be used. The American Psychological Association's APA Guidelines for Psychological Assessment and Evaluation (2020), which we opened on October 29, 2026, state in Guideline 7 that psychologists should strive to use multiple sources of information, because individual performance on a test is one piece of an assessment, read in context. Written for psychologists, the guidelines say they apply to assessment procedures such as job selection that could affect the well-being of the person assessed, and that an in-depth treatment of technology-based assessment and test security is outside their scope. For you, that means one SHL result or one ACIS profile is a single estimate, best read alongside what you know about your work and learning.

The concrete next step depends on where you are. If an SHL invitation is in your inbox, read the instructions, use SHL's own practice page if you want format familiarity, and ask the recruiter about feedback. If you want a private, adult normed look at your own abilities at any time, start the free trial, open the example report for the form that interests you, and decide on Quick, Optimized or Full Scale after you have seen what it prints.

13 Sources Behind This Page

Every third party fact and figure on this page comes from the documents below, opened or verified on October 29, 2026, and any figure we calculated ourselves is labeled in the text as our arithmetic. For the five journal articles we read the abstract and the bibliographic record, not the full text, and the text above uses only what those abstracts state. SHL pages and fact sheets can change, and the fact sheets carry the copyright year printed on them.

• SHL. Products, assessments overview, cognitive assessments, personality assessments and behavioral assessments pages. Read October 29, 2026; none shows a publication date.
• SHL. Verify assessment fact sheets, read October 29, 2026, with the copyright year printed on each: Verify Interactive G+, Interactive Numerical Reasoning, Interactive Inductive Reasoning, Interactive Deductive Reasoning, Interactive Numerical Calculation, Verify G+, Deductive Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, Verbal Ability, Spatial Ability and Checking.
• SHL. Verify Mechanical Comprehension Next Generation, product catalog entry for IBM Kenexa customers. Read October 29, 2026.
• SHL. Verify Ability Test Report, sample candidate report dated September 27, 2018. Read October 29, 2026.
• SHL. Candidate support: Deadlines and Results, Can I have my assessment results? and Assessments: Timing, Submitting and General Issues. Read October 29, 2026.
• SHL. Verify Gen 1 tests are being retired, SHL support notice. Read October 29, 2026.
• SHL. Practice tests. Read October 29, 2026.
• International Test Commission (2006). International guidelines on computer-based and internet-delivered testing. International Journal of Testing, 6(2), 143-171. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327574ijt0602_4
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14 Frequently Asked Questions