True aptitude testing consists of a series of independent work samples or tasks, each one tapping a different aptitude. The tests are designed to measure your natural talents, those inborn abilities that make it easier for you to learn or to do certain things. In our unique battery of copyrighted tests you are required to do over twenty different tasks. Your scores on each task form a profile that describes what you were "born to do" — things that you can easily learn or can comfortably perform on the job. Every occupation uses certain aptitudes, and the profile of aptitudes required for different careers has been extensively studied for over eighty years.

 

Aptitude tests are not interest tests.  You may be very interested in being a concert pianist, but lack the basic talent to do it successfully as a career. Also, interests change over time and with life experience, so they are not a good tool for making long-range career plans.

 

Aptitude tests are not personality inventories, like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. They are not questions you can answer about yourself. Such inventories rely on your mood or your vision of yourself at the time you answer the questions.  Also, such indicators allow you to answer as you think you ought to answer, whereas the aptitude tests require you to engage in a specific action.

 

Aptitude tests are not intelligence tests.  Two people who score the same absolute number on an intelligence test could have totally different aptitude test profiles. The single-number intelligence test score does not specify your strengths and weaknesses relative to any given career. 

 

At Ability Potentials, our aptitude testing process is the same for all our clients, no matter what age they are or what educational background they have. In the 4 hour testing session, the 20 different aptitudes we measure include: math, engineering, problem-solving, music, flow of ideas, manual speed and accuracy, and visual aptitudes. We measure an aptitude by giving clients a specific task to do – a task they could successfully complete if they had adequate time. We give only a short period of time in which to do the task, however. That testing process uncovers to what extent an aptitude comes naturally.