CAT4 test explained: the four batteries (verbal, quantitative, non-verbal, spatial) and the two tests in each, the levels by year group and age, how long it takes, the Standard Age Score, stanines and percentiles, what the profile means, how UK schools and British-curriculum schools in the UAE use it, what a good CAT4 score is, how to prepare, and a printable sheet

The CAT4 is the test a UK secondary school gives in the first weeks of Year 7, the test a British school in Dubai or Abu Dhabi uses to decide an admission, and the number behind the "target grades" that appear on a child's reports for the next five years. Parents meet the result as a row of four scores and a stanine. GL Assessment, which publishes it, describes it well on its own pages and sells nothing to parents; this page follows the publisher.

Download the CAT4 sheet (PDF) (the four batteries and eight tests, the levels by year group and age, the SAS-to-stanine-and-percentile table, the profile patterns and the questions to ask the school; two pages, free).

What it is

The four batteries

The spatial battery is what makes CAT4 different from the CogAT it descends from and from the 11 plus: GL added it because the capacity to think in three dimensions predicts success in STEM subjects and is invisible in classroom marks. The product page's example is a bright, articulate EAL pupil whose profile showed strengths that his confidence hid.

The levels, by year group and age

Level X and Pre-A cover the youngest children (ages 6 to 8, the two-part test). The ranges overlap on purpose so a school can test a whole year group on one level; a Year 7 admission test is Level D, a Year 9 or 10 benchmark Level F. GL's table also maps the levels to Scottish and Northern Irish year groups, and international schools map them to grades by age.

The scores

Standard Age Score (SAS). The child's raw score on each battery adjusted for age and placed on a scale with a mean of 100 for the age group, from the national standardisation. The Individual Report gives an SAS for each of the four batteries and a mean of the four. GL's guidance: read the four separately; the mean hides the pattern.

Stanine and national percentile rank. The SAS is also reported as a stanine (1 to 9) and a percentile by age.

The percentile column is the normal-curve reading of a scale with mean 100 and standard deviation 15, which is the scale GL's reports use; the stanine boundaries (89, 97, 104, 112, 119, 127) are the standard ones. Stanine 9, an SAS of 127 or more, is about the top 4 percent and the line GL's materials associate with the most able.

The profile. The useful reading is the spread. GL's rule of thumb is that a difference of ten or more SAS points between batteries is significant. A child at verbal 95, quantitative 101, non-verbal 115 and spatial 116 (GL's own example, stanines 4, 5, 7, 7) reasons far better with shapes and space than with words, and the school's job is to teach to the strength while building the language: more diagrams, worked examples and structured writing frames, not more comprehension worksheets. The common patterns schools name are a verbal bias (verbal well above spatial), a spatial bias (the reverse), an even profile, and an extreme profile (gaps of 20 or more).

How schools use it

• Baseline and target grades. At the start of Year 7 (and again in Year 9 or 10), CAT4 gives the school an objective picture of the intake and, through GL's indicators, the GCSE and A level grades a child with that profile typically goes on to achieve. Those indicators are the origin of the "target" or "expected" grades on the reports that follow, and a parent is entitled to ask which indicator was used and whether it was adjusted.
• Setting. Many schools set maths and English partly on CAT4 in the first term, before they have their own marks.
• Finding hidden ability and need. A high non-verbal and spatial score with a low verbal one in a child new to English says the child can think; a low score across the board in a child with good classwork says the opposite and is worth a second look.
• Admission abroad. British-curriculum schools in the UAE and elsewhere use CAT4 at Level D or E as the entrance assessment for Year 7 and above, often with a written English task, and GL's international edition adds CBSE and IB indicators for schools that run those curricula alongside.

What a good score is, and what the number is not

An SAS of 100 is the average child of that age; 115 is the top sixth; 127 the top 4 percent. A good score for a particular purpose is the school's to define: a selective school may take only stanine 7 and above, a comprehensive uses it to set and to flag. What the score is not is a measure of attainment, effort or potential in any fixed sense: GL describes CAT4 as a measure of developed abilities, which grow with reading, maths and a childhood of problems to solve, and a child retested at Level F three years after Level D can move. The 11 plus page has the selective test many of the same children sit a year earlier; the CogAT page has the American parent of the CAT4, with three batteries instead of four.

How to prepare, honestly

See the eight question types once, with the timing: GL publishes no practice papers for parents and sells the test only to schools, so any "CAT4 practice" is a third party's imitation. Read, every day; do mental arithmetic; build and draw. Sleep before the test day. And treat the result as information for the school, which is what GL built it to be, rather than a verdict on the child.

Download the CAT4 sheet (PDF) (the batteries, the levels, the scores, the profile and the questions; two pages, free).

Where to get help

A 1-on-1 online class with a tutor who holds a master's degree and teaches the English national curriculum from KS2 to A level maths, chemistry and physics, at 7 am before school, after 4 pm and on weekend mornings, UK or Gulf time, for about £9 to £12 an hour: the CAT4 profile read together in the free 30-minute first class, the battery the school is setting on understood, and the term spent on the reasoning and the subject, not on imitation papers. How online tutoring from India to the UK works, or the 1-on-1 online tutoring page.

Sources: GL Assessment, CAT4 product page (ages 6 to 17+; 30 minutes x 2 and 45 minutes x 3; digital and paper; standardised on 25,000 students and verified yearly on a quarter of a million; the four batteries and GL's descriptions of each; SAS per battery and mean; Key Stage 2, GCSE, A level and IB indicators; Year 7 and Year 9 or 10 use; the EAL example); GL Education, CAT4 international page (IB and CBSE indicators; international school groups); GL Assessment's 2014 product page as reproduced in ATM's Mathematics Teaching 233 (the level table A to G with standardised ages and year groups; standardised on 25,000 UK pupils; schools only). The eight test names are GL's battery contents as reproduced in school guides; the stanine bands and percentiles are the standard reading of a scale with mean 100 and SD 15. Fetched 11 November 2026.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →