Many times parents are quite excited about a particular hobby or sport that they would love to see their child excel in. But in the entire process of fascination and excitement they forget to recognize if their child is really interested in it or not. Interest is a powerful motivational process that stimulates learning, pays attention to academic and career paths, moreover being essential for academic success. The child’s interest is very important, hence they must be asked open-ended questions and a close watch must be kept on their responses and behaviors.
A child’s interest can also be detected professionally through an interest test, also known as an Aptitude test. An aptitude test is a psychometric test that evaluates a child's talents from various angles. It distinguishes the diverse areas of abilities and inclinations existing in an individual.
What is aptitude?
Aptitude in a layman's language refers to the natural ability of a person to tackle specific tasks. It is the potential, an inherent quality in a person that helps them engage in a specific task. It is also associated with the natural ability to learn specific things. Aptitude is more about special abilities that make an individual different from others.
What is an aptitude test?
An aptitude test is a psychometric tool used to assess or measure an individual's ability to succeed in a given task, with no prior knowledge or experience of it. It is an attempt to measure a person’s ability to learn some specific skill sets, through future training. The test considers that people differ in their special abilities and these differences are helpful in forecasts about the future achievers. Aptitude tests are used by schools, colleges, universities as well as organizations for assessment purposes.
What are the advantages of Aptitude Test?
- An aptitude test evaluates a person beyond their resume.
- It helps in the objective assessment of candidates.
- It promotes a competency-based recruitment process.
- It helps in effective screening.
- The test is run according to a standardized process.
- The test in itself is cost-effective.
- The test has predictive insights.
- It helps in the process of quality hiring.
- The test is completely fair and unbiased.
- The test also identifies training needs for the individual.
- The test is based on assessment through competency.
What are the types of aptitude tests?
There are many different ways to test aptitude; these are the most common tests.
- Numerical Reasoning Test: These tests are intended to measure a person’s ability to deliver the right decisions or conclusions from numerical or statistical data. It is designed to include the ability to work with numerical data.
- Verbal Reasoning Test: This test may be used to assess the knowledge of written texts and how genuine are the person's conclusions. Verbal reasoning tests may help in identifying those candidates who are good at understanding, analyzing and critical decision making.
- In-Tray and E-tray Exercises: These are standardized psychometric assessment tests that provide information about a person’s general ability to handle and react to a range of diverse tasks. This is to settle conflicting demands and examine distinct priorities.
- Inductive Reasoning: These tests are standardized psychometric assessment tests that provide data about a person’s problem-solving skills. This assessment tool is intended to measure an individual's ability to work flexibly with new information and obtain solutions for the same.
- Mechanical Reasoning Tests: These tests usually target and evaluate a person's in-depth abilities and knowledge with mechanical concepts. They also help measure the inborn capabilities used for applying engineering principles to get correct answers.
- Diagrammatic Reasoning Test: The sole purpose of this test is to assess an individual's ability to recognise shapes as well as abstract ideas. The test is used to make a quick observation from illustrations along with applying them to new ideas for getting the correct answer.
- Spatial Reasoning Test: It is non-verbal, standardized psychometric evaluation test that gives information about an individual’s ability to mentally re-order, rotate or mould shapes and objects without physically touching them.
- Situational Judgment Test: These assessment tests help in providing information about a person’s general ability to determine the most relevant action in a given situation. These tests are created to measure an individual’s aptitude to handle circumstances that they could face.
- Mental Arithmetic Tests: It is a standardized psychometric assessment test that provides information regarding general numerical aptitude. The test is designed to measure the basic numeracy and can be classified as a speed test.
- Number Sequences: These tests are also called number series tests. They provide the information regarding the test taker’s general ability to deal with logical reasoning with numbers.
- Verbal Analogies: These tests are used on SAT, GRE and other professional exams. They provide information about a person's general verbal keenness and insight. They are planned to measure a candidate’s ability to identify relationships between ideas, think methodically and fluency in the English language.
- Vocabulary Tests: Vocabulary Tests are standardized psychometric evaluation tests that provide information about a test taker's general vocabulary size.
- Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Tests: These tests are widely referred to as critical reasoning test, that measure critical thinking ability, general understanding of the importance of evidence when making conclusions, the ability to differentiate between inferences, abstractions, and generalizations through applying logic along with the ability to combine these skills above when making these decisions.
- Syllogisms: These tests provide information about a candidate’s deductive and logical reasoning abilities.
- Word Problem Tests: They provide information about a candidate’s extensive reading and comprehension talents, ability to imagine information and numerical aptitude.
- Logical Reasoning: They provide information about an individual’s general problem-solving ability.
