Updates
Everything new on CognitiveDrill, newest first, with the date it went live. A fresh entry goes up each week that something changes.
Test pages are clearer before you begin
You can now see how each kind of test works through a simple picture. Shorter descriptions also make it easier to choose a test.
- NewEvery test page now includes a picture explaining the task, so you can understand what it measures before you begin.
- NewFive popular tests now have preview pictures on the home page, so you can choose a starting point more easily.
- BetterPage introductions now use plain instructions and name the result you will see, so you can judge whether a test suits you.
- FixedWhen you share a page, its preview image now loads reliably instead of stopping at a redirected address.
- BetterThe footer now groups tests into three balanced columns, so you can scan the full library with less scrolling.
Five spatial tests, and two more for your memory
The spatial reasoning section is open, with five tests of holding a shape in your head. Two memory tests are new as well, one for words and one for shades.
- NewThe spatial reasoning section is open. The mental rotation test shows two block figures, one of them turned, and asks whether they are the same shape or mirror images. The paper folding test punches a hole through a folded sheet, then asks where the holes land when it opens.
- NewThe embedded figures test buries a shape in a pattern of lines and times how long you take to find it. The spatial ability test mixes three kinds of question and tells you which kind cost you the marks. The block counting test shows a pile of cubes and asks how many are in it, including the ones you cannot see.
- NewThe verbal memory test shows words one at a time and asks whether each has been past before. Your score is the words you caught, less the ones you only thought you had seen.
- NewThe colour memory test shows a few shades, then asks you to pick them back out of a chart of 24. The set grows by one shade every time you rebuild it whole.
- NewA new page sets out how mental rotation accuracy changes with the angle between two figures. Accuracy barely moves. The time you take does, and the published line is drawn from upright to a half turn.
- BetterThe sustained attention test now has a button under the digit, reading Not a 3, so you can see where to press. The space bar still answers from anywhere, and the digit no longer walks the button up and down the screen.
- FixedThe verbal memory test no longer scores one word twice when a tap on a phone arrives as two presses. A press that beats the word onto the screen is discarded rather than timed.
Six new logic tests, and a picture to remember
You can now work through six more logic tests, from a grid of nine tiles to a machine full of gears. The photographic memory test also changed, and now shows you a scene instead of a grid of letters.
- NewThe matrix reasoning test shows a grid of nine tiles with the last one missing. Rules run across the rows and down the columns, and you pick what fills the gap.
- NewThe verbal reasoning test gives you a passage, one statement and three answers. It counts how often you said the lines settled something they did not.
- NewThe cognitive reflection test gives you three short puzzles. Each has an answer that arrives before you finish reading, and that answer is wrong.
- NewThe number sequence test shows three numbers and a blank, and you type what comes next. Ask for another term and it counts against your score.
- NewThe mechanical reasoning test draws a drive train and a handle, then asks one question about it. Clear a machine and the next one gains another wheel.
- NewThe decision making test covers four options and states one rule. You open only what you need, commit, and the clock stops.
- BetterThe photographic memory test now shows you a scene for five seconds, then asks three questions about what was in it. It used to flash a grid of letters.
Five logic tests, and two more for your ears
The logic section is open, with five tests of working something out. None of the five places you in a distribution, because no published figures exist for these questions.
- NewThe common sense test asks what happens next, roughly how much, and what comes first. The reason an answer is right is printed under it.
- NewThe pattern recognition test gives you six tiles under a hidden rule and asks for the seventh. It names the rules once you have answered, so you can see what you were meant to spot.
- NewThe critical thinking test shows two lines and a conclusion, and asks whether it follows. It reports how far believable wording pulls your answers.
- NewThe abstract reasoning test shows five figures, four keeping one rule and one breaking it. Twenty sets under a clock, in the format the graduate schemes use.
- NewThe numerical reasoning test writes out the sum after you answer. Every wrong option on it is the figure one particular slip produces.
- NewThe sound localisation test plays a burst in your headphones and asks where it came from. You drag a marker round an arc, and the number is your median angle error in degrees.
- NewThe audio memory test plays a melody with nothing on screen, then asks you to tap it back. The number is the longest one you played back right.
Keep your results when you change phone
You can now make an account, and your history follows you to another browser or another device. Every test still works signed out, and nothing about how a test runs has changed.
- NewSign in with a six-digit code sent to your email, or with Google. There is no password to make up or forget.
- NewA dashboard showing your best on each test, how many runs you have taken, and when you took them.
- NewWhatever this browser already had is saved to your account the first time you sign in. Nothing is lost and nothing needs importing.
- NewShare your scores as one image, drawn in your browser. It carries your numbers and never your email.
- NewA public scoreboard, if you want one. It sits at a link only people you send it to can find, and it updates itself as you take more tests.
- NewDelete your account from the dashboard and every result saved to it goes too. The copy in your own browser stays yours.
Processing speed and hearing sections, and seventeen new tests
You can now find out whether you can name a note by ear, or how small a difference in pitch you can hear. Two new sections open, one for processing speed and one for hearing. Seventeen tests arrive with them.
- NewA hearing section, with four tests in it. Every one of them plays you a sound, asks a question and reports one task-specific result.
- NewA perfect pitch test. One note plays with nothing to compare it against, and you have five seconds to name it on a keyboard.
- NewA relative pitch test. Two notes play from a different starting pitch every time, and you name the gap between them.
- NewA tone deaf test. Two tones play and you say which was higher, and the gap narrows until you cannot tell them apart.
- NewA hearing frequency test that hides the tone in one of two windows and asks which. Saying you heard it is not enough, so the number cannot be inflated by guessing.
- NewA processing speed section, with five tests in it. They time how quickly you take in something simple and act on it, so most of them need no vocabulary and no arithmetic.
- NewA digit symbol substitution test. Nine digits, nine symbols and ninety seconds, and your score is how many you got right before the clock stopped.
- NewA symbol search test. Two symbols on the left, five on the right, and one yes or no answer. The number is how long a typical decision took.
- NewA number comparison test. One number sits above another and you say whether they match. They run from three digits long to nine.
- NewA mental age test, which names the age band your speed lands nearest. It also shows the arithmetic behind that band, and why the bands overlap too far to take it seriously.
- NewA mental math test. Sums arrive one at a time and you type the answer, and the score is how many you get right in a minute.
- NewA tempo keeper. A beat plays, then stops, and you carry on tapping it. Your score is how far your taps drifted from the beat in milliseconds.
- NewAn aphantasia test, based on the VVIQ questionnaire. It asks you to picture sixteen things and rate how clear each one felt.
- NewA photographic memory test. A grid of letters flashes and vanishes, and you type back the ones you can still place. Most people keep about four.
- NewA chimp test, from the study where a young chimpanzee beat university students. Numbers scatter across a grid, hide at your first tap, and you tap them back in order.
- NewA selective attention test. Five arrows appear together and only the middle one counts, so you can see how much the other four slow you down.
- NewAn attention to detail test, with no clock on it. Two columns of codes, eight rows that do not match, and every one you missed shown at the end.
- NewThe aphantasia result sits in a range with no better or worse end. A low score and a high score are both a normal way for a mind to work.
- NewA Schulte table test. A 5x5 grid of the numbers 1 to 25, shuffled. Tap them in order as fast as you can. Five tables in a row, and your score is the median of the five times.
- NewA double click test that measures the gap between your two clicks in milliseconds. Click in pairs ten times. Useful if your mouse is missing double-clicks in everyday use.
Your comparison is on screen straight away
Finish a test and you can see how your score compares without clicking anything. The front page also says in one line what you get here.
- BetterThe table that shows how your score compares is now open when the page loads. You used to have to spot a link and click it.
- NewA new front page. It tells you what you get before you scroll, which is one honest number per test.
- BetterLonger reads now sit together in Blog, and the number tables in Statistics. Either one is a click away from anywhere on the site.
- BetterClearer page titles, so a result in Google tells you which test you are about to open.
Save your score as a picture, and know what a test asks before you start
You can turn any finished result into an image to keep or send, and nothing about it leaves your device. Every test now shows what it will ask of you up front.
- NewFinish a test and you can save the result as a picture. It carries a code that opens the test, not your score.
- NewThe picture is made on your own phone or computer. Your result is never uploaded, and no web page of your score is created.
- NewThe settings and the five steps now sit above every test, already open. You can see what is coming before you begin.
- BetterThe menu at the top lists every test, grouped by what it measures. Finding the next one takes one look.
- BetterShorter sentences on every page. Nothing was cut, it is simply quicker to read.
- FixedThe menu bar no longer follows you down the page, so a test gets the whole screen on a phone.
Where the site started: 18 tests, one number each
The first version went up with eighteen tests across four areas. Each one gives you a single number and a fair way to read it.
- NewEighteen tests covering reaction time, memory, attention and input speed.
- NewOne number per test, shown next to a range from published research, so you can see roughly where you sit.
- NewThat range is marked as coming from research rather than from us. We will not publish figures of our own until enough people have taken a test for them to mean anything.
- NewYour attempts are saved on your device and drawn as a chart, so you can beat your own best. No account, and nothing sent to us.
- NewA page in plain English on how each test is timed, and where the timing can still be off by a few milliseconds.
- NewEvery test says which published task it came from, and how our version differs from it.
Where to go next
The full list of tests shows everything you can take today. All of them are free, and none of them need an account.
If a line above does not match what you find on the site, tell us and we will put it right. The about page has an address for corrections, and it also lists the areas we have not built yet.