Named tests
The Wonderlic test
In short
The Wonderlic is a workplace cognitive test first copyrighted in 1937 as the Wonderlic Personnel Test: 50 questions in 12 minutes. Today’s Wonderlic Select keeps a 50-question, 12-minute timed cognitive section inside a three-section assessment of about 35 minutes. Wonderlic says the current test gives no single numerical cognitive score and no universal good score.
Want your own number? The test is 25 visual puzzles, about 12 minutes, no sign-up.
Where the Wonderlic came from
In 1932, E. F. Wonderlic was Director of Personnel at Household Finance and set out to improve its hiring (Wonderlic history page). The company sent him to graduate school at Northwestern to find a better way to hire entry-level branch workers (Siegel, FiveThirtyEight 2015). The first copyrighted version of the Wonderlic Personnel Test appeared in 1937 (Wonderlic history page). The company describes it as a short-form intelligence test of 50 questions in 12 minutes, at a time when most general intelligence tests ran over three hours, and says it was given away for free early on in exchange for data (Wonderlic history page).
The classic test arranged its 50 questions from easiest to hardest (Siegel, FiveThirtyEight 2015). FiveThirtyEight reported that a score was a number up to 50, with an average across all professions of about 21 (Siegel, FiveThirtyEight 2015). That describes the classic test, not the current one.
The test today: Wonderlic Select
| Feature | Wonderlic Select |
|---|---|
| Sections | Three: one timed (cognitive) and two untimed |
| Cognitive section | 50 questions in 12 minutes |
| Whole assessment | About 35 minutes for most people |
| Aids | No calculator, dictionary or other resources |
| Scores | No single numerical cognitive ability score; no universal good or average score |
Source: Wonderlic's candidate FAQ (Wonderlic: FAQ). The practical upshot: score lists you find online mostly describe the classic Wonderlic Personnel Test. If you are applying for a job, ask the employer which version you will take.
The Wonderlic and the NFL
The test became famous through football. FiveThirtyEight reported that the Dallas Cowboys began using it in the 1960s, other teams followed by the 1970s, and Wonderlic staff administered it at the Scouting Combine every year from 2007 (Siegel, FiveThirtyEight 2015). The same article cited a 2009 study of 762 NFL players that found little correlation between reported Wonderlic scores and on-field performance (Siegel, FiveThirtyEight 2015). In January 2022 the NFL told teams it planned to eliminate the test for draft prospects (AP, January 2022).
Why employers use tests like it
In the wider research literature, general mental ability is one of the stronger predictors of job performance: a review of 85 years of studies estimated a validity of 0.51 (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). That is an average across many jobs. Football is a reminder that an average across many jobs may not hold for a narrow, highly physical one.
How to prepare
- Train for speed: 50 questions in 12 minutes is under 15 seconds per question.
- Skip and move on. On a speeded test, one stuck question costs you several easier ones.
- Practice the item families that reward method: number series, figure analogies and quick arithmetic without a calculator.
- Take a timed run: our Wonderlic-style practice test times every question. Familiarity helps a little; retest gains average about a quarter of a standard deviation (Hausknecht et al., 2007).
For how it stacks up against its closest rival, see Wonderlic vs CCAT, and for the difference between hiring tests and IQ tests, IQ test vs aptitude test.
IQ Octopus is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wonderlic or any other publisher named here. Test names are used only to identify and describe the tests. Our free practice tests are not copies of any published test, and no score on IQ Octopus predicts a score on another test.
Try one · Spatial Reasoning
Which option is the same shape, only rotated?
Tap the option you think is right, or show the answer.
Show the answer
Option 1 is the original figure turned a half turn.
How to solve it
- Pick a landmark: the marked cell or the end of the longest arm.
- Turn the figure in your head and watch where that landmark goes, and which side the other cells end up on.
- Turning the figure a half turn gives option 1.
- Each of the other options is a mirror image: flipping it over would match, but no turn does.
That was 1 puzzle. The full test has 25.
Sources
- Wonderlic, Our History (The Story of Wonderlic), accessed 2026-10-21 wonderlic.com/about/history/
- Wonderlic. Frequently asked questions about Wonderlic assessments. wonderlic.com/blog/candidates/frequently-asked-questions-about-wonderlic-assessments/
- Alan Siegel, How A Multiple-Choice Test Became A Fixture Of The NFL Draft, FiveThirtyEight, April 30, 2015 (Wayback Machine copy) web.archive.org/web/2023/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-a-multiple-choice-test-became-a-fixture-of-the-nfl-draft/
- Rob Maaddi, Associated Press, NFL teams could lose draft pick for interview violations, January 5, 2022, as published by the Washington Times (Wayback Machine copy) web.archive.org/web/2022/https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/5/nfl-teams-could-lose-draft-pick-for-interview-viol/
- Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262
- Hausknecht, J. P., Halpert, J. A., Di Paolo, N. T., & Moriarty Gerrard, M. O. (2007). Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 373-385. doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.373