Mechanical Aptitude Test Practice

A mechanical aptitude test (also called a mechanical reasoning or mechanical comprehension test) shows you a drawing of a simple machine and asks what it will do: which way the last gear turns, which side of a beam goes down, how much force a pulley system needs, which spring stretches most. You are not asked to recall formulas from a textbook. The questions test whether you can see how forces and motion pass through a mechanism, which is why employers use them to pick people for jobs where things are built, fixed or operated.

This practice test gives you 20 questions in 15 minutes, each with a clean diagram and three or four options. The first third are one-step questions (direction, which is heavier, which ramp is easier), the middle third need one calculation (gear speed, lever force, pulley force, belt speed, ramp force) and the last third take two steps (gears on a shared shaft, closed gear rings, block-and-tackle distance, spring systems, hydraulic presses). Every question is generated fresh from a seed and scored on our server, so you can retake it and never see the same set twice. After the test you get your score, a percentile on our scale, your result per topic and a review of every question you missed with the rule behind it.

Which mechanical aptitude tests employers use

• Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test (BMCT), published by Pearson (TalentLens). The best known of them: illustrated multiple-choice items on everyday physical situations. The current edition is commonly described as 55 items in 25 minutes.
• Ramsay Corporation tests such as the Mechanical Aptitude Test (MAT) and MechTest, widely used in manufacturing, utilities and maintenance hiring, often alongside electrical and reading tests.
• Wiesen Test of Mechanical Aptitude (WTMA), built to keep the reading load low so that the score reflects mechanical reasoning rather than vocabulary.
• ASVAB Mechanical Comprehension, one of the subtests of the US military's Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, which counts towards the scores used for mechanical and maintenance specialities.
• SHL, Aon and other publishers include a mechanical comprehension test in their technical and apprentice batteries, usually in the same picture-and-question format.

Who has to take one

Apprenticeships and trainee schemes in engineering, manufacturing and automotive work; maintenance technicians, electricians, millwrights and machine operators; utilities, energy and water companies (lineworkers, plant operators); rail, aviation and shipyard technicians; firefighters in some departments; and military recruits through the ASVAB. Engineering graduate schemes sometimes add one next to numerical and verbal reasoning.

The principles behind most questions

• Gears. Each meshing gear reverses direction, so in a chain every second gear turns the same way as the first. Speed scales with the teeth: driven rpm = driver rpm × driver teeth ÷ driven teeth. An idler gear changes direction but not the ratio; gears on one shaft turn together. A closed ring with an odd number of gears jams.
• Levers. A beam balances when force × distance from the pivot is equal on both sides. Put the effort far from the pivot and you need less of it; put it closer than the load (tweezers, your forearm) and you need more.
• Pulleys. Count the rope segments that hold up the moving block. With four of them you pull with a quarter of the load, and you pull four metres of rope for every metre it rises.
• Belts and wheels. An open belt keeps the direction, a crossed belt reverses it. The smaller wheel turns faster, in proportion to the diameters.
• Springs. Springs in series each carry the whole load and their stretches add up; springs side by side share the load and stretch less.
• Inclined planes. A longer ramp to the same height needs less force but a longer push. Without friction, force = weight × height ÷ length.
• Fluids. Pressure in a liquid depends on depth, not on the shape of the container. In a hydraulic press the pressure is the same on both pistons, so the force grows with the piston area.
• Also on real tests: centre of gravity and stability, pendulums, simple electrical circuits (series and parallel bulbs), heat and expansion, and which way a wheel or a nut moves when turned.

Timing strategy

Most of these tests give you well under a minute per question. Do not calculate when a rule settles it: direction questions are a parity count, and "which goes down" is a comparison of two products you can often do in your head. Spend the saved time on the two-step questions. If a question stalls you, eliminate what cannot be true (a pulley never needs more force than the load it lifts; a smaller wheel never turns slower than the bigger one driving it), choose, and move on. Check whether wrong answers cost marks on your test; if they do not, never leave a question blank.

What is a good mechanical aptitude score?

Scores are reported as percentiles against a norm group, such as apprentice applicants or experienced maintenance staff, so a raw score only means something next to the group it is compared with. Many employers are reported to look for a result around or above the median of their applicant pool, and higher for skilled maintenance roles. On this practice test 12 of 20 is about the 50th percentile on our scale, 16 is about the 84th and 18 or more puts you in the top tenth. Our percentiles come from a fixed table set for this test, not from any publisher's norms.

GamePrep is independent and not affiliated with Pearson, TalentLens, Ramsay Corporation, Wiesen, SHL, Aon, the US Department of Defense or any test publisher. The questions are generated for practice and are not taken from any real test; nothing here is a leaked item.