Showcasing quick, accurate decision making and an ability to think rationally under pressure are competencies employers always value – and in a logical reasoning test it’s these skills that are put under the microscope.
Practising as many logical reasoning tests as you can before the big day is the best way to prepare for the one test that really matters. But if you combine exam preparation with these top three tips, you’ll have nothing to worry about!
1. Start by simplifying the data
Although time is of the essence, making sure you read each question slowly and calmly to ensure you really understand what’s being asked of you is definitely worth doing. Every question will be different, but the common thread is applying logical thinking to deduce the answer from a complex problem. So where possible, simplify the data and use your rationality to find the pattern.
2. Break information down into illustrations
Very often in a logical reasoning test, you’ll find the question written out in a long paragraph, containing lots of valuable information. It would be easy at this point to panic. But don’t! Instead, try breaking down the information you’re given into illustrations such as Venn diagrams, pie charts or bar graphs. Many people find visualising information in this way much easier to interpret than sifting through endless lines of text. If visuals don’t work for you, try writing down key words or valuable lines from the paragraph and see if this works.
3. It’s about quality, not quantity
The most important thing is to answer as many questions as you can, as accurately as you can. But accuracy definitely trumps trying to answer them all in a rush. At the beginning of the test, work out how long you can spend on each question as a rough benchmark – but focus on completing the questions you feel confident answering, not speeding through them in favour of completing everything. And as always, if you have time left at the end you can go back to any unanswered problems.
So there you have it, with a bit of practice and these three tips to hand, there’s no reason you won’t succeed at the logical reasoning tests. You can do it!