Crossover Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT): Format, Scoring and Practice

Published 25 March 2024 · Updated 6 August 2026

Crossover uses the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT) as a required step in its application process. The CCAT sets 50 questions with a 15 minute limit and no calculator, mixing three question types: verbal, math and logic, and spatial reasoning. Criteria Corp, the test’s publisher, reports that the average test taker answers 24 of the 50 correctly and that fewer than 1% of candidates get through every question.

What the Crossover CCAT measures

The CCAT is a general cognitive ability test, not a knowledge test. It does not check what you studied or which tools you have used. It measures how quickly you take in unfamiliar information, find the rule inside it and act on that rule.

The timing is the point. Fifty questions in 15 minutes leaves an average of 18 seconds per question, so speed is part of what is being scored rather than an accident of the format. Preparation is mostly about removing the hesitation that costs you those seconds.

What question types are on the CCAT?

Criteria describes three kinds of question: verbal, math and logic, and spatial reasoning.

Verbal. Antonyms, analogies, sentence completion and short logic statements. A typical antonym item asks for the word most nearly opposite in meaning to a given word. Given SCARCE, with the options plentiful, rare, sparse and limited, three of the four are close synonyms of scarce, which leaves plentiful as the answer. Reading the option list for near-synonyms first is faster than searching for the opposite directly. You can drill this style on our verbal reasoning tests.

Math and logic. Word problems, averages, ratios, percentages and number series, all worked without a calculator. Two examples of the level involved:

• A team of four logged an average of 32 hours. Three of them logged 28, 35 and 31 hours. How many did the fourth log? The four together logged 4 × 32 = 128 hours. The three known figures come to 28 + 35 + 31 = 94. So the fourth logged 128 - 94 = 34 hours.
• What comes next in the series 4, 9, 19, 39? Each term doubles and adds one, so the next term is 39 × 2 + 1 = 79.

A third pattern worth rehearsing is direct proportion. If 6 machines make 180 units an hour, one machine makes 180 ÷ 6 = 30, so 10 machines make 30 × 10 = 300 units. Our numerical reasoning tests cover the same arithmetic under time pressure.

Spatial reasoning. Criteria describes this section as rotating or flipping images in your head, recognizing patterns and identifying outliers. Practice on our spatial reasoning tests and abstract reasoning tests, which use the same mental operations.

How the Crossover CCAT is scored

Criteria sends the employer two numbers. The raw score is simply how many of the 50 questions you answered correctly. The percentile places that raw score against everyone else who has taken the test.

There is no penalty for a wrong answer on the CCAT, which changes the strategy completely: an unanswered question and a wrong answer are worth the same to you, nothing. Leaving anything blank when the clock runs out costs you free expected marks.

Criteria puts the average raw score at 24 out of 50 and says fewer than 1% of candidates answer all 50, so falling short of the end is normal rather than a failure. Crossover’s own support pages state that it cannot provide your CCAT score or feedback on your performance, so treat any specific pass mark you see quoted elsewhere as unverified.

Can you retake the Crossover CCAT?

Crossover’s support documentation states that, since January 2019, candidates can attempt the CCAT only once per email address in any six month period. The first sitting is therefore the one that counts. That single rule is the strongest argument for preparing properly rather than treating your first attempt as a practice run.

What is the PCCAT, the proctored CCAT?

The PCCAT is the proctored version of the same assessment. Crossover’s support documentation places it at the onboarding stage: the contractor schedules and clears the PCCAT before being introduced to their manager and starting the assignment.

The questions and the time pressure are of the same kind, so your preparation does not change. What does change is the setup around you. Proctored sittings impose conditions on your identification, your room and how you are monitored, and the instructions issued with your invitation are the authority on exactly what is required. Read them in full well before the day rather than in the ten minutes beforehand.

How to pass the Crossover cognitive aptitude test

• Budget 18 seconds a question and hold yourself to it. If a question has not started to come apart in about that time, guess and move on. One question you refuse to abandon can cost you three easier ones.
• Answer every question you reach. With no penalty for wrong answers, an educated guess is always worth more than a blank.
• Eliminate before you guess. Every option you can rule out raises the odds on the guess that follows, so scan for the obviously wrong ones first.
• Rebuild your mental arithmetic. No calculator is allowed, so percentages, fractions, ratios and simple algebra need to be automatic. Time spent here converts directly into questions answered.
• Play to your strengths. Few people are equally quick at words and numbers. If word problems are slow for you, bank the verbal and spatial questions first rather than stalling on the math questions.
• Read the instructions properly. The instructions are untimed. Reading them carefully costs you nothing and prevents the mistakes that come from guessing at the format in the first minute.
• Sit it in the right conditions. A quiet room, notifications off, and paper and pen to hand. The test is short enough that a single interruption is expensive.

Practice for the Crossover CCAT

The most useful preparation is timed and repeated. Sit full length practice tests against the clock, then go back over every question you got wrong or guessed and work out which step lost you the time. That review is where the improvement comes from, not from the score itself.

Start with our cognitive ability tests, which follow the same mixed format, then use our free aptitude tests to work on whichever of the three question types is slowing you down.