To qualify for the office manager's job, 55-year-old Mariel must take a series of psychological tests. Her performance on the test of speedy reasoning and abstract reasoning is likely to be poorer than if she had taken it as a 25-year-old. What was this particular test assessing

The abstract reasoning test is also called the conceptual reasoning test. It measures your lateral thinking skills or fluid intelligence, which are your ability to quickly identify patterns, logical rules and trends in new data, integrate this information, and apply it to solve problems. It measures what most people would refer to as ‘ street smarts’ and the ability to ‘think on your feet’ .

What do employers seek to learn from your abstract reasoning score?

The ability to quickly identify relationships, patterns and trends in organisational data, such as customers’ purchasing behaviour or market research, is crucial to your capacity to think strategically, grasp the bigger picture and quickly solve problems. Therefore, employers typically expect you to at least have reasonable abstract reasoning capabilities.

Employers use the result of your abstract reasoning test to learn the extent to which you are:

capable of efficiently learning new skills

capable of thinking strategically about problems and developments within the relevant business field

capable of quickly analysing new information, integrating it to the overall scheme of things, and applying it to solve work-related problems

capable of processing and analysing new work-related data in a logical manner.