CCAT Practice Test
This is a free 15-question sampler in the style of the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test, written by the StudyPDF team. It covers the three areas the CCAT tests: verbal ability, math and logic, and spatial reasoning. The real spatial items are pictures, so here they are described in words. Answer all 15, then check your score and read the explanation for every question.
Which word is most nearly OPPOSITE in meaning to RELUCTANT?
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All 15 questions at a glance
Prefer to read before you play? Every question in the sampler is listed below. Answers and explanations stay collapsed until you open them.
1. Which word is most nearly OPPOSITE in meaning to RELUCTANT?
- A. Eager
- B. Hesitant
- C. Tired
- D. Polite
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Eager
Reluctant means unwilling or slow to act, so its opposite is eager, meaning keen to start. Hesitant is the trap: it is close to a synonym of reluctant, and opposite questions often put a synonym among the choices to catch a quick reader.
2. SEED is to TREE as EGG is to:
- A. Nest
- B. Bird
- C. Shell
- D. Breakfast
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Bird
A seed grows into a tree, so the relationship is what something grows into. An egg grows into a bird. A nest and a shell are connected to eggs, but neither is what the egg becomes, and breakfast is a use, not a growth stage.
3. Choose the word that best completes the sentence.
Because the assembly instructions were so _____, half the team built the shelf the wrong way.
Options for blank 1: ambiguous, precise, brief, colorful
Show answer and explanation
Answer: ambiguous
The sentence needs a reason why people built it wrong, and ambiguous means open to more than one reading, which explains exactly that. Precise instructions would have prevented the mistake, and brief instructions can still be perfectly clear.
4. PRUDENT most nearly means:
- A. Proud
- B. Careful
- C. Quick
- D. Rude
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Careful
A prudent person thinks ahead and avoids needless risk, so careful is the closest match. Proud only looks similar because the words start with the same letters, which is a common trap on timed vocabulary items.
5. Which of these words are similar in meaning to DILIGENT?
Select all that apply.
- A. Industrious
- B. Painstaking
- C. Idle
- D. Reckless
- E. Hardworking
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Industrious, B. Painstaking, E. Hardworking
Diligent describes steady, careful effort, and industrious, painstaking and hardworking all describe that. Idle means not working at all, and reckless means acting without care, so both point the other way.
6. An office printer prints 18 pages per minute. How many minutes does it take to print 270 pages?
- A. 10
- B. 12
- C. 14
- D. 15
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. 15
Divide the total by the rate: 270 divided by 18 is 15. A quick check is 18 times 10, which is 180, plus 18 times 5, which is 90, and 180 plus 90 is 270.
7. What number comes next in this series? 3, 5, 9, 17, 33, ...
- A. 49
- B. 57
- C. 65
- D. 66
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. 65
The gaps double each time: 2, 4, 8, 16, so the next gap is 32 and 33 plus 32 is 65. Another way to see it is that each number is double the one before minus 1.
8. Complete the sentence.
A store sells pens at 3 for $2. At that price, 12 pens cost _____.
Options for blank 1: $6, $8, $9, $24
Show answer and explanation
Answer: $8
Twelve pens is four groups of 3, and each group costs $2, so the total is 4 times $2, or $8. The $24 choice comes from multiplying 12 by 2, which prices every pen at $2 instead of every three.
9. Maya is taller than Leo. Leo is taller than Sam. Priya is shorter than Sam. Who is the second shortest?
- A. Maya
- B. Leo
- C. Sam
- D. Priya
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Sam
Line them up from tallest to shortest: Maya, Leo, Sam, Priya. Priya is the shortest, so Sam is second shortest. Writing the order down as you read takes a few seconds and prevents most mistakes on these items.
10. Which of these fractions are greater than 1/2?
Select all that apply.
- A. 4/9
- B. 3/5
- C. 2/5
- D. 5/8
- E. 7/12
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. 3/5, D. 5/8, E. 7/12
A fraction is greater than 1/2 when its top number is more than half its bottom number. Half of 5 is 2.5, half of 8 is 4 and half of 12 is 6, so 3/5, 5/8 and 7/12 all pass. Half of 9 is 4.5, so 4/9 falls just short, and 2/5 is below half as well.
11. A team of 24 people has engineers and designers in a ratio of 5 to 3. How many designers are on the team?
- A. 6
- B. 8
- C. 9
- D. 15
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. 9
A 5 to 3 ratio splits the team into 8 equal parts, and 24 divided by 8 is 3 people per part. Designers get 3 parts, which is 9 people, leaving 15 engineers. Choosing 15 means the ratio was read the wrong way.
12. Picture the capital letter N. Rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. Which capital letter does it now look most like?
- A. Z
- B. M
- C. W
- D. U
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Z
Turning N a quarter turn clockwise lays its two upright strokes flat, one along the top and one along the bottom, and the diagonal now runs from the top right down to the bottom left. That is the shape of a Z.
13. In a sequence of shapes, each shape has one more side than the one before, and the shapes alternate between shaded and unshaded. The sequence starts: shaded triangle, unshaded square, shaded pentagon. What comes next?
- A. Shaded hexagon
- B. Unshaded pentagon
- C. Shaded heptagon
- D. Unshaded hexagon
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Unshaded hexagon
Two rules run at once. The sides go 3, 4, 5, so the next shape has 6 sides, a hexagon. The shading goes shaded, unshaded, shaded, so the next one is unshaded. Real pattern items often combine two rules like this, and the wrong choices usually get one of them right.
14. Complete the sentence.
A cube is painted on all six faces and then cut into 27 equal smaller cubes. The number of small cubes with paint on exactly three faces is _____.
Options for blank 1: 1, 6, 8, 12
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 8
Only a corner cube touches three outside faces, and a cube has 8 corners. The 12 choice counts the edge cubes, which have paint on two faces, and the 6 choice counts the face centers, which have paint on one.
15. Which of these capital letters look exactly the same when flipped left to right, as in a mirror?
Select all that apply.
- A. T
- B. A
- C. B
- D. H
- E. R
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. T, B. A, D. H
T, A and H each have an upright line of symmetry down the middle, so a left to right flip leaves them unchanged. B and R have their curves on the right side only, so in a mirror the curves would face left.
What the CCAT is and how it works
The CCAT, short for Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test, is a pre-employment test made by Criteria Corp. Employers use it to see how well a candidate solves problems, takes in new information and thinks critically. There is no job knowledge on it. According to Criteria's candidate pages, it has 50 questions and a 15-minute time limit, which leaves less than 20 seconds per question. No calculator is allowed.
The questions come from three areas. Verbal items ask for word meanings, opposites, analogies and the word that best completes a sentence. Math and logic items cover word problems, number series, ratios and short reasoning puzzles. Spatial items show shapes and patterns and ask which one comes next or which one does not belong. Criteria says its tests draw on a large bank of items, so practice the question types rather than hoping to see a question you memorized.
The score is simple. The employer gets your raw score, meaning how many of the 50 you answered correctly, and a percentile that compares you with other test takers. Criteria says fewer than 1 percent of candidates answer all 50 questions and the average test taker gets about 24 right, so not finishing is normal. There is no penalty for a wrong answer. What counts as a good score is up to each employer, and it often differs by role, so ask the recruiter if you want to know the bar.
How to use this sampler
This page is not timed, on purpose. The first job is to find out which kind of question slows you down, and a clock makes that harder to see. Once you know your weak types, practice under real conditions: set a 15-minute timer, work through mixed questions with no calculator, and watch what happens to your accuracy as the time runs down.
Two habits matter more than anything else on the real test. First, answer every question, because a blank and a wrong guess both score zero, but a guess can score a point. Second, do not camp. If a question has not cracked after 20 or 30 seconds, guess and move on, because one stubborn word problem can cost you three or four easier questions later. Criteria's own advice points the same way: once you have spent more than a minute on a problem, make an educated guess and go to the next one.
The spatial questions here are written out in words because this sampler is text only. On the real test you will see the shapes, which is usually faster, so treat these as practice in the thinking, not the look. Read every explanation when you finish, including the ones you got right. If you are also preparing for the Wonderlic, the same pacing habits carry over.
How to build more practice tests from your own materials
Fifteen questions can show you which question type costs you time. They cannot get you ready on their own, and a generic bank does not know that your verbal items are fine but number series lose you every time.
StudyPDF works from your material instead. Upload the aptitude prep book you bought, the practice packet a recruiter sent you or your own math notes. Then press New material, pick a practice test, choose those files as the sources and set how long it should be. You get a test written from those exact pages, and every explanation cites where the answer comes from. Make a fresh one whenever you want, or narrow it to a single type such as ratios or number series.
Bo is the tutor for the rest. Ask him why an answer is right and he explains it from your own pages, with a hint first if you want one.
You do not have to upload anything to start. Name a topic instead, for example verbal analogies or percentage word problems, and you get a practice test on that with the same explanations. Starting is free.
Written by the StudyPDF team. Last updated 2026-08-19.