The NNAT is the test most often behind a letter home that says a child has been "screened for gifted services" in kindergarten, first or second grade. It is a nonverbal test, pictures only, which is why districts with many English learners use it, and it is short: 48 questions, about half an hour. Everything below comes from Pearson, the publisher, and from the test's manual.
Download the NNAT sheet (PDF) (the levels by grade, the four question types with what each asks, the NAI-to-percentile table and a four-week preparation plan; two pages, free).
What it is
The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, Third Edition, is Pearson's "nonverbal measure of general ability" for kindergarten through grade 12. Every item is a matrix or a sequence of shapes with one part missing and five answer choices; there are no words to read and no numbers to compute, and the directions are the only language involved. It is group-administered, online or on paper, in about 30 minutes, and a district may give it once or twice in a school year. Pearson lists it at qualification level B, which means schools administer it themselves, unlike the WISC.
Because nothing on the test depends on vocabulary or on what has been taught, it is the screener districts reach for when they want to find able children whose English or schooling would hold them back on a verbal test. It is also the reason a very verbal child can score lower on the NNAT than on the CogAT, whose verbal and quantitative batteries reward exactly what the NNAT leaves out.
The levels by grade
| Level | Grades |
|---|---|
| A | Kindergarten |
| B | Grade 1 |
| C | Grade 2 |
| D | Grades 3 and 4 |
| E | Grades 5 and 6 |
| F | Grades 7 to 9 |
| G | Grades 10 to 12 |
Each level has 48 items arranged in approximate order of difficulty. Pearson's manual for Levels E to G describes the NNAT3 as a power test, meant to measure reasoning rather than speed, and notes that most students were able to complete it within the 30 minutes; the time limit still exists, so pace matters at the upper levels, where the items are harder.
The four question types
| Type | What the child sees | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| Pattern completion | A design with a piece cut out | Which of the five pieces completes the design so that the pattern continues across the gap |
| Reasoning by analogy | A 2 by 2 or 3 by 3 grid of shapes | How the top row changes from left to right (colour, size, rotation, number), applied to the bottom row |
| Serial reasoning | A sequence of shapes across a row or a grid | The rule that moves each shape to the next position, and the shape that belongs in the empty cell |
| Spatial visualization | Two or more figures and a combined figure | What the figures look like when combined, overlaid or folded |
The youngest levels are mostly pattern completion; analogies and serial reasoning take over by Level C and D; spatial visualization appears from the middle levels. The skill underneath all four is the same: find the rule, then apply it, then check every answer choice against the rule rather than stopping at the first that looks right.
How it is scored: the Naglieri Ability Index
The raw score (items right out of 48) is converted, by age, into the Naglieri Ability Index (NAI), a standard score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16 that runs up to 160, and into percentile ranks, stanines and normal curve equivalents. The manual notes that the relationship between NAI and percentile is fixed, and that the distance between percentiles is not even: the gap between the 90th and 95th percentile is far larger in ability than the gap between the 50th and 55th. The percentile is the number to read; it says what share of children the same age scored lower.
| NAI | About the percentile | Stanine |
|---|---|---|
| 84 | 16th | 3 |
| 92 | 31st | 4 |
| 100 | 50th | 5 |
| 108 | 69th | 6 |
| 116 | 84th | 7 |
| 120 | 89th | 8 |
| 124 | 93rd | 8 |
| 128 | 96th | 9 |
| 132 | 98th | 9 |
| 136 | 99th | 9 |
| 140 | 99.4th | 9 |
| 148 | 99.9th | 9 |
The percentile column is the normal-curve reading of a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16, which is what the fixed NAI-to-percentile relationship in the manual is; the report the school sends has Pearson's exact table.
What score is gifted?
The test does not say; the district does. Programmes commonly set their line between the 90th and 98th percentile (NAI about 120 to 132), often combined with a second measure (the CogAT, an achievement test, a teacher rating) and sometimes with local norms, where the child is compared with children in the same school rather than nationally. The NNAT is usually the first gate, not the decision. The gifted and talented page has the categories districts use and the questions to ask them.
How to prepare a child, honestly
- Teach the format, not the answers. Show a child what a matrix is, that one cell is empty, that exactly one of the five choices fits, and that the rule can be colour, shape, size, number, position or rotation, and often two of these at once.
- Say the rule out loud. The child who can say "each row adds one dot and the shading moves clockwise" has done the reasoning; the one who points at the choice that "looks right" has guessed. Ten minutes of that a day for three weeks is enough.
- Practise pace. 48 items in 30 minutes is under 40 seconds each. Teach the child to skip and return, and that an unanswered item scores the same as a wrong one.
- Do not drill. A child trained on hundreds of look-alike matrices can score above their reasoning, be placed in a programme that moves fast, and be unhappy there. The screen is meant to find children who will thrive on harder work; the preparation that helps them is the reading, the puzzles and the maths that build the reasoning itself.
The NNAT is one of three group ability tests used for gifted screening; the CogAT adds verbal and quantitative batteries and the OLSAT mixes verbal and nonverbal items in one test.
Download the NNAT sheet (PDF) (the levels, the question types, the NAI-to-percentile table and the preparation plan; 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 US curriculum from Grade 1 number work to AP Calculus, chemistry and physics, at 7 am before school, after 4 pm and on weekend mornings, US time, for US$10 to $13 an hour: the report read together in the free 30-minute first class, the domain or the skill the score is really pointing at found, and the term spent on exactly that, with the method written out the way the school marks it. How online tutoring from India to the USA works, or the 1-on-1 online tutoring page.
Sources: Pearson, Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, Third Edition, product page (levels A to G and the grades they serve, forms, 48 multiple-choice items, 30 minutes, online and paper, NAI with percentile ranks, stanines, scaled scores and NCEs by age, qualification level B); Pearson, NNAT3 Manual, Levels E-G (2016): the NAI scale (mean 100, standard deviation 16, to 160), the fixed NAI-to-percentile relationship, 48 items in approximate order of difficulty, most students finishing within 30 minutes. The percentile and stanine columns are the normal-curve reading of that scale. Fetched 9 November 2026.
Questions parents ask
1What is the NNAT test?
2What are the NNAT levels by grade?
3What is a good NNAT score?
4What are the four NNAT question types?
5Can you prepare for the NNAT?
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