For employees facing promotion and leadership assessments
Your next assessment matters. Prepare for the parts you can practise.
Promotions and leadership programmes often come with a test, and it rarely looks the same twice. The format may change, but reading carefully, reasoning and answering against the clock can all be practised. ACE-Test is for assessments that include timed reasoning or judgement questions, not a substitute for preparing for leadership interviews, presentations or assessment centres.
iPhone, iPad and any web browser. Questions, explanations and screens are in English. No account needed.
Sound familiar?
Where you might be right now
- Your promotion, talent programme or leadership selection includes an online test
- You have heard the test is different from the last one
- It has been years since you did timed arithmetic or shape puzzles
- Your diary is full and you have ten minutes a day at most
Our story
Why ACE-Test exists
Takayoshi Watanabe
Founder, RUOK LLC
- Head of Business Unit, Amazon
- Director, Salesforce
- Passed Country Head assessment, Bayer
- Passed Country Head assessment, Takeda
- Passed management assessment
Former roles and assessments; no affiliation with or endorsement by these companies.
I spent my career at global companies, and at each promotion there was an aptitude test of some kind. The format kept changing.
The usual advice was that you can't really prepare for these tests. Yet the results were taken into account in decisions about my career.
I came to disagree with part of that advice. Practice won't change what a test measures. But you can get to know the question types, get used to working against the clock and learn from your mistakes, so that an unfamiliar format is not what decides the day.
Whether you are applying for your first graduate role, changing jobs or going for a promotion, please practise properly before you sit the test. I built ACE-Test so that anyone can start that preparation for free, for your career and for the fuller life you are working towards.
Inside the app
See what you'll practise
Real screens from ACE-Test. Every question has a clock, a two-step hint and a worked explanation.
- 870
- original practice questions written for online aptitude tests
- 253
- of them with charts, tables, grids or figures
- 7
- general aptitude sections, from abstract reasoning to data interpretation
- 3
- graduate-recruitment formats: critical thinking, situational judgement and verbal true/false/cannot say
Start free
Start free. No account needed.
Everyone gets these, with no time limit. Premium is for when you want to practise as much as you like.
A 5-question diagnostic
Five test-level questions on one clock, with no easy warm-ups mixed in. See your first result and the formats that trip you up. Free, as often as you like.
3 practice questions a day
Pick any section, including the graduate formats. Every question you answer comes with hints and a step-by-step explanation.
Your mistakes, explained
Explanations for the questions you got wrong are never locked behind a paywall. See exactly where your method broke.
The eve-of-test review
The key points to look at the night before, plus the questions you missed in the last 14 days, on one screen.
Your plan
How long until your test?
Choose the time you have left. Every plan includes steps you can do for free. Where a step needs Premium, it says so, with a free alternative.
1. Week 1
Take the diagnostic to find your weak formats. Do 3 questions a day, morning or lunchtime.
2. Weeks 2 to 3
Focus on the formats named in your invitation: numerical, abstract, situational judgement or critical thinking.
3. Week 4
Free: keep timing every question. Premium: sit full timed mock tests to settle your pacing.
Pricing
Free to start. Premium when you want more.
Select your App Store country to see the price. If your country is not listed, the App Store shows your local price before you buy.
Free
£0
No account, no time limit
- 5-question diagnostic
- 3 practice questions a day
- Your mistakes explained
- Eve-of-test review
Weekly Premium
£4.99 a week
Renews automatically every week until you cancel
Lifetime Access
£19.99 once
One-off payment. No subscription, no expiry
Both Premium options unlock the same features: all 870 questions with no daily limit, timed mock tests, spaced repetition and a plan paced to your test date.
You can upgrade inside the app at any time, or in your browser with the same prices. Prices in other countries are shown in your local App Store.
- Weekly Premium renews automatically each week until you cancel. In the App Store, cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current week to avoid the next charge. If you bought in your browser, cancel any time from the Manage subscription link in the web app or your receipt email; Premium stays on until the end of the week you paid for.
- Lifetime Access is a single payment that unlocks the same Premium features with no expiry.
- If you expect to practise for four weeks or more, Lifetime Access costs less than paying weekly.
- ACE-Test runs as an iPhone and iPad app and in any web browser, so Android users can practise in the browser version now. The Android app is coming to Google Play.
- App Store purchases are refunded through Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.
- Web purchases are processed by RevenueCat with payment by Stripe. Prices are the same as in the App Store.
- Premium bought in your browser works in any browser where you sign in with the same email. It does not yet unlock the iPhone and iPad app, and App Store purchases do not yet unlock the web app.
How results are used
How organisations use tests in promotion
Every organisation runs its own process. This is how tests are commonly used, not a description of any particular employer.
One input to the decision
Organisations that use tests in promotion or talent selection typically weigh them alongside performance reviews, sponsor feedback and interviews. How much weight they carry varies by organisation and is rarely published.
The format changes with the level
Some promotion processes include reasoning or judgement tests. Others rely more on interviews, leadership exercises, case studies or work simulations, and the same organisation may use a different approach at each step. Check your invitation before deciding what to practise.
Often part of a wider assessment
Tests may sit alongside personality questionnaires, interviews or case exercises. ACE-Test covers the part where you solve reasoning and judgement questions against the clock.
ACE-Test does not prepare you for personality questionnaires, interviews, presentations, group exercises or leadership simulations. It covers the reasoning and judgement questions you answer against the clock.
From our founder's coaching sessions
Advice he gives the people he coaches
The biggest lesson I took from working in global companies was to say out loud what you want, even if it's a long shot. A good manager's job is to help build the ladder towards it, but they can't help with an ambition you've never told them.
In a STAR answer, the situation is the bridge into the interviewer's world, so keep it short but complete. The task is where you show your thinking: what you chose to focus on and what you deliberately dropped.
Don't bend yourself out of shape to fit a company. If you showed who you really are and still didn't get the offer, you've avoided a role where you would have struggled.
Drawn from recorded one-to-one career coaching sessions by Takayoshi Watanabe. Details have been removed to protect the people he coached.
Know the test
What online aptitude tests measure
Employers combine these question types in different ways, and each publisher's test looks a little different. These are the families you are most likely to meet.
Numerical reasoning
Reading tables and charts, picking the numbers that matter and working out percentages, ratios and change. A calculator is often allowed, so the real test is spotting which figures to use, fast.
Verbal reasoning
Reading a short passage and deciding whether a statement is true, false or cannot be said. You judge only on what the passage says, not on what you happen to know.
Abstract and inductive reasoning
Finding the rule in a sequence or grid of shapes and choosing what comes next. There are almost no words, so it rewards a method for hunting rules more than language skill.
Logical and deductive reasoning
Drawing only the conclusions that must follow from the facts given: ordering, matching and combining conditions.
Critical thinking
Spotting assumptions, judging whether an inference holds and weighing the strength of arguments. Common in graduate and professional services recruitment.
Situational judgement
Reading a workplace scenario and rating how effective each response is. The right answer depends on the behaviours the employer is looking for.
The myth
"You can't prepare for these tests." Half true.
Practice will not transform your underlying reasoning ability overnight, and no honest app should promise that it will.
But some lost marks may have less to do with the abilities a test is meant to measure than with the conditions around it. Meeting a question type for the first time and burning a minute working out what it wants. Misjudging the clock and leaving the last questions blank. Nerves knocking out the method you normally use.
Those are preparation problems, and preparation is something you can do.
Familiarity
If you have seen the format before, you spend your time answering, not decoding instructions.
Speed
You learn what a minute per question feels like, and when to move on rather than dig in.
Nerves
Knowing you have done the work makes it easier to stay with your method under pressure.
Free checklist
Your test-day checklist
Useful whether or not you use ACE-Test.
As soon as the invite arrives
- If a disability or health condition affects how you take timed tests, ask the employer about reasonable adjustments as early as you can, before you start the test.
- If the invitation links to a practice test from the test publisher, take it. It is the best way to see the real screens and controls.
- Check whether your university careers service or employer offers free practice tests too, and use them alongside ACE-Test.
The day before
- Reread the invitation email. Check the deadline, the time zone and the test link.
- Check your device and browser against the employer's technical requirements.
- Find out whether a calculator and rough paper are allowed, and have them ready if so.
- Open the eve-of-test review in ACE-Test: the key points and the questions you missed in the last 14 days.
- Do not start new topics. Get a proper night's sleep.
On the day
- Turn off notifications and book a quiet slot where nobody will interrupt you.
- Check your battery and connection. Plug in a laptop if you can.
- Read the instructions screen carefully, especially how the time limit works.
- Do not get stuck. If a question is eating your time, pick your best answer and move on.
- Follow the instructions on guessing. Whether wrong answers cost marks depends on the test.
Free guides
Guides for every step before the offer
How global companies hire, step by step
A plain-English walk through the hiring process at large global employers: application and ATS screening, online assessments, video interviews, assessment centres, final interviews and offers. Typical timelines, what each stage screens for, the UK and Australian graduate calendar, and how experienced and internal hiring differ.
Read the guide
How to structure a CV or resume that gets read
How to build a CV that applicant tracking systems can read and recruiters can scan in seconds: layout, section order, the action + metric + result formula for bullets, UK and Australian CV versus US resume conventions, and cover letter basics.
Read the guide
CV advice by job family
What recruiters scan for in CVs for software engineering, data and analytics, finance and accounting, consulting, marketing, sales, operations and supply chain, HR, and graduate roles with no experience. Key sections, example bullet structures and common mistakes.
Read the guide
Using AI well, and honestly, in your job search
Practical, honest ways to use AI assistants in a job search: tailoring a CV to a job description, drafting STAR interview answers, mock interviews and company research, with example prompts. Plus what not to do, including fabricating experience and using AI during assessments.
Read the guide
What Google's careers site says about resumes
A short, sourced summary of the resume advice Google publishes on its own careers site, including the 'accomplished X as measured by Y, by doing Z' formula, and how to apply it to any application.
Read the guide
Build a stronger CV by talking it through with an AI voice assistant
A step-by-step workflow for using an AI voice assistant to interview you about each role, draw out achievements and numbers, turn them into X-Y-Z and STAR bullets, tailor them to a job description and finish with a mock recruiter screen. Copy-paste prompts included.
Read the guide
Free aptitude test preparation resources for students and careers advisers
A page careers advisers and L&D teams can share: common reasoning and judgement test formats, what to check before an assessment, reasonable adjustments, where to find free practice, and what ACE-Test does and does not offer for free.
Read the guide
FAQ
Questions people ask
People say promotion tests can't be prepared for. Why bother?
Your underlying reasoning ability will not change in a few weeks. What can change is how familiar the formats feel, your sense of timing and how calm you are. Avoiding marks lost to an unfamiliar format is often what lets your real level show.
The test is different from last time. What should I practise?
Formats change, but the foundations are shared: reading numbers from tables and charts, picking out the conditions in a passage and finding the rule in a pattern. Start with the 5-question diagnostic to see which formats you find hardest.
Can you tell me how my organisation uses the results?
No. Every organisation sets its own process and we have no inside knowledge of any of them. Check the guidance from your HR or talent team.
What can I use for free?
The 5-question diagnostic, up to 3 practice questions a day, explanations of the questions you got wrong and the eve-of-test review are free for everyone, with no account and no time limit. Premium adds unlimited practice, timed mock tests, spaced repetition and a plan paced to your test date.
Will practice guarantee a higher score?
No one can honestly guarantee that. Practice does not change your underlying ability overnight. What it can change is familiarity with the formats, your sense of timing and how calm you are, which are the things that cost people marks they should have had.
Are these the real test questions?
No. All questions are original practice material written by our team. ACE-Test does not reproduce any real test's questions, screens or scoring and is not affiliated with any test publisher or employer.
Your next assessment matters. Prepare for the parts you can practise.
Practise the questions. Understand your mistakes. Walk in prepared.
Or practise in your browser, no download needed
ACE-Test questions are original practice material written by our team. They do not reproduce any real test's questions, screens or scoring, and ACE-Test is not affiliated with or endorsed by any test publisher or employer.
