SHL OA practice: numerical, verbal, inductive and OPQ

SHL is a family of tests, not a single one. The exact set on your invite matters.

• Verify G+ — the adaptive general ability test. Combines numerical, verbal and inductive in one 36-minute session.
• Verify Numerical Reasoning — 18 questions, 25 minutes, tables and charts to interpret.
• Verify Verbal Reasoning — around 30 questions in 19 minutes, true/false/cannot-say against a passage.
• Verify Inductive Reasoning — shape and pattern sequences.
• OPQ32 — the personality inventory, 104 questions, no right answers.
• Coding assessments — SHL now offers HackerRank-style coding tasks for tech roles.

The invite email usually names the specific test. Do not prepare generically; prepare for the exact tests listed.

Verify G+ and Verify adaptive numerical use item response theory. Every answer you give updates SHL’s estimate of your ability level, and the next question is picked to match that estimate. Two consequences:

• Your score is not correct out of total. It reflects the difficulty of the questions you handled correctly.
• Getting easy questions right proves little. Getting harder questions right proves a lot. Rushing to answer confidently on easier questions will keep you stuck in the low-difficulty band.

Do not race the clock. Accuracy on medium and hard questions is what raises the final score.

The OPQ32 asks you to rank statements about yourself as most like me and least like me. There is no objectively correct profile — but employers benchmark your responses against a role profile they have set.

• Do not try to guess what the employer wants. SHL includes consistency checks that flag faked responses.
• Answer honestly at your best. Think of how you show up at work on a good day, not a bad one.
• Do not overthink single items — the score is built from patterns across all 104.

SHL numerical questions have a specific texture. The tables are dense, the calculations are simple but multi-step, and the wrong answers are engineered to catch a plausible misread of the chart. Generic quant prep helps arithmetic, but only SHL-style practice trains the exam-taking pattern.

SHL runs a free practice test under your candidate account. Do it. It is the single best resource because it uses the real scoring engine.

• Day 1: the official SHL practice test in your invite portal.
• Day 2: numerical — 20 questions, timed, focus on reading charts before touching the calculator.
• Day 3: verbal — 30 questions, discipline yourself to answer only from the passage, not from world knowledge.
• Day 4: inductive — pattern sequences, 15 questions timed.
• Day 5: OPQ dry run — click through the practice OPQ so the format is familiar.
• Day 6: a mixed timed set combining all three ability areas.
• Day 7: rest. Overpreparing the day before hurts more than it helps.