General Ability

As of 2027 the General Abilities assessment replaces the Core Abilities Assessment.

Help your organization identify potential faster— and build teams ready to learn and perform.

In today’s fast-moving workplace, success depends on how quickly people can learn, adapt, and apply new information. With more applicants than ever, organizations don’t need more resumes—they need better insight into who will thrive.

General Ability helps you identify individuals with the core reasoning skills that drive success across roles. Measuring verbal, numerical, and abstract reasoning, it gives you a clear, reliable view of a person’s ability to learn, solve problems, and perform on the job—so you can move forward with confidence.

Primary Use: Selection and Development
Assessment Type: Cognitive: General Mental Ability (GMA) through the assessment of core cognitive ability across verbal, numerical, and abstract reasoning.
Job Level: Entry level
Job Type: Any role requiring individuals to have strong Verbal Reasoning skills
Number of Items: 15
Administration Format: Unproctored
Norms: General population norms, Role-based comparisons, Industry benchmarks (where available)

Available Languages

• English

What does the General Ability measure?

1. Verbal Reasoning – Recognizing subtle relationships among concepts or ideas, identifying commonalities, and thinking constructively on an abstract level.
2. Numerical Reasoning – Interpreting and working with numbers to solve problems and make decisions.
3. Abstract Reasoning – Identifying patterns, trends, and relationships in unfamiliar information.
4. Learning Agility – The ability to quickly grasp new concepts, processes, and job requirements.
5. Problem Solving – Applying logic and analysis to navigate tasks and challenges effectively.
6. Workplace Readiness – Demonstrating the foundational thinking skills needed to succeed across roles.

Benefits

• Quick and efficient – Approximately 15 minutes to complete
• Measures core cognitive ability across verbal, numerical, and abstract reasoning
• Strong predictor of job performance and learning ability
• Streamlines high-volume screening to quickly identify top candidates
• Objective, data-driven insights to support fair and consistent decisions
• Automatically generated score reports for immediate interpretation
• Ideal for entry-level and early career roles across industries

What It’s Best Used For

• Streamlining high-volume applicant screening: Filtering massive candidate pools quickly and objectively to spot top-tier thinkers before advancing them down the recruitment funnel.
• Vetting entry-level and early-career talent: Evaluating incoming frontline or junior staff across any industry to ensure they have the mental baseline to succeed from day one.
• Predicting rapid learning onboarding success: Forecasting an applicant’s true learning agility and processing speed before investing corporate resources into training or software education tracks.
• Balancing multi-dimensional cognitive logic: Benchmarking a candidate’s mental flexibility across text evaluation, basic financial numeracy, and abstract trend identification simultaneously.
• Informing internal development tracks: Assisting managers with objective data-driven insights to structure future talent development, mentor matching, and team planning programs.

© Pearson Canada Assessment, Inc.