CAT4: a tutor's honest guide for parents

I'm Anmol. I teach Maths and Non-Verbal Reasoning one-to-one online, and CAT4 comes up in almost every first conversation I have with a parent. Usually it arrives with a letter from a school and a knot of worry: what is this test, can we prepare, and what does the score actually mean? Let me walk you through it the way I'd explain it on a call.

What is the CAT4 test?

CAT4 is a suite of reasoning tests published by GL Assessment, used by thousands of UK schools. It doesn't check whether your child knows their times tables or can spell "necessary". It looks at reasoning — the raw thinking a child brings to a new problem they've never seen before.

Two things make it tick. First, it's standardised: every child's raw marks are converted into a Standard Age Score (SAS) that compares them against other children born in the same months, so a summer-born Year 5 isn't quietly penalised for being younger. A score of 100 is exactly average for a child's age.

Second, and this is the part parents often get wrong, CAT4 is non-adaptive. Every child at a given level answers the same questions in the same order. That's different from the ISEB pre-test, which is adaptive and gets harder or easier as your child goes. It's a small technical point with a real consequence, and I'll come back to why it matters for how you prepare.

Most schools run CAT4 on a computer, and it's timed. The standard version takes a little over two hours, split across three shorter timed sections. Younger children sit a gentler, shorter version.

Why CAT4 matters

A school isn't testing your child to trip them up. CAT4 gives teachers a reading of potential that a term of homework grades can't.

Say a child is quiet in class and their books look middling, but their CAT4 comes back strong. That gap tells a teacher there's more in the tank, and it's a reason to stretch them rather than leave them coasting. It works the other way too. A child working hard for solid marks but with a lower reasoning profile might be running near their ceiling, and now the school knows to support rather than pile on pressure.

Beyond the individual child, schools use CAT4 to set or group pupils, to benchmark a whole year, and to help predict future results at GCSE. Some independent and selective schools also fold it into entrance or scholarship decisions. So while it isn't an exam in the sit-and-revise sense, the score can genuinely open or close doors.

Who sits CAT4?

CAT4 spans a wide age range, roughly 6 to 17-plus, and it comes in ten UK levels so the questions suit the child. Schools tend to use it at transition points — moving up a school, or the start of a new key stage — which is why Year 7 is such a common time to meet it.

Here's how the levels line up:

If your child is preparing for entrance exams, you'll often see CAT4 sitting alongside the 11+ rather than replacing it.

What does CAT4 cover? The four batteries

CAT4 is built from four batteries, and each one tells you something different about how a child reasons.

• Verbal reasoning — thinking with words, spotting relationships between them, following logic expressed in language. It underpins essay subjects, English and the humanities.
• Non-verbal reasoning — solving problems using shapes, patterns and diagrams, with no words involved. A strong signal of pure problem-solving, and it matters well beyond art or design; maths and science lean on it constantly.
• Quantitative reasoning — reasoning with numbers and the relationships between them. Note the difference from a maths test: this isn't memorised method, it's seeing the numerical logic underneath a problem.
• Spatial reasoning — picturing and mentally rotating shapes in two and three dimensions. The quietest of the four in most classrooms, yet a real predictor of strength in STEM subjects.

Put together, the four give a rounded profile rather than a single mark, which is exactly why teachers find it useful.

How I help with CAT4

Here's the honest bit, and it's the thing I say to every parent: you can't cram CAT4. It measures reasoning, and reasoning grows slowly with time, reading and curiosity, not with a weekend of drills. GL Assessment themselves advise against heavy practice.

But there's a real problem worth solving. A capable child can underperform on CAT4 simply because the format ambushes them. If a bright ten-year-old has never seen a non-verbal pattern grid or a spatial-rotation question, never worked against a clock on a screen, the first few minutes go on panicking about how the test works instead of thinking. That's a capable child scoring below their ability, and it's avoidable.

That's where I come in. I teach the two batteries closest to my subjects — Non-Verbal Reasoning and the numerical thinking behind Quantitative Reasoning — one-to-one and online. We don't grind through hundreds of papers. We get your child fluent with the question types, calm about the timer, and confident enough that the test measures their real thinking rather than their nerves. I'll also show you how to build the everyday habits that lift reasoning over the longer run.

The first lesson is free, so you can see how your child responds before committing to anything.

Common questions

Can you revise for CAT4?

Not in the exam sense — you can't memorise your way to a higher reasoning score. What you can do is remove the surprises, the format, the timing and the on-screen tools, so your child performs at their genuine level. That's familiarity, not cramming, and it's a fair and useful thing to do.

What's a good CAT4 score?

Scores are given as a Standard Age Score where 100 is dead average for your child's age. Roughly 89 to 111 is the average band; above that is above-average. Try not to fixate on a single number, though — the profile across the four batteries usually tells a richer story than the headline figure.

How is CAT4 different from the 11+ or the ISEB pre-test?

The 11+ tests attainment in specific subjects, and the ISEB pre-test is adaptive. CAT4 is neither — it's a fixed, standardised reasoning assessment. A strong CAT4 is a good sign for those exams, but it's not the same test and shouldn't be treated as a substitute.

How long does CAT4 take, and is it on a computer?

Most schools deliver it digitally, and it's timed. The standard sitting runs a little over two hours across three short sections, with a shorter version for younger children.