The Aon (cut-e) assessment for job applications

If a bank, consultancy, airline ground role or graduate scheme has sent you an Aon or cut-e assessment link, you are about to meet the same "scales" test engine used to screen airline pilots — trimmed and remixed for corporate hiring. Here is what to expect and, honestly, which parts you can train and which you should prepare differently.

How it works

You get a link, a deadline, and a chain of short online modules, each 2 to 12 minutes, each measuring one thing. Employers pick their own mix. Strong performers are often re-tested under supervision later in the process, so there is no point gaming the home attempt. The defining feature is the format: modules are too short to warm up inside, and the clock per item is tight. You are either ready at question one or you donate points.

The modules you are most likely to meet

Numerical reasoning (scales numerical, eql)

Two very different things hide under this name. Data-interpretation tables and charts, where reading the question correctly is half the work, and fast applied arithmetic, percentages, ratios and rule of three under a short clock. The second kind is pure trainable speed.

Logical and deductive reasoning (scales cls, lst, ix)

Grids, sequences and rule-finding puzzles. Fluid reasoning under time: format familiarity helps, and pattern vocabulary builds with practice.

Memory and concentration (scales stm, e3+)

Short sequences recalled after interference, and long accuracy tasks where the challenge is staying precise at minute six. These come straight from the aviation side of the engine.

Monitoring and multitasking

For some roles (operations, trading floors, aviation-adjacent jobs): watch several moving things, react to conditions, sometimes while computing. Untrained candidates collapse here first.

Verbal reasoning and situational judgement

Passage-based true/false/cannot-say, and workplace scenario judgement. These are language and culture tests more than speed tests, and they need their own preparation: reading practice and understanding what the employer rewards.

Scoring: normed against other applicants

Like every product of this engine, your score is a rank against a reference group of candidates, not a percentage. The group is made of motivated applicants who mostly practised, so an untrained attempt undersells you. Preparation is not cheating; the norm assumes it.

What you can train, honestly

Straight answer, because prep sites tend to blur this: the speed mechanics are highly trainable — timed arithmetic, short-term memory, sustained concentration, monitoring and multitasking all respond to daily practice within two or three weeks. Data-interpretation, verbal reasoning and situational judgement respond to a different kind of preparation: practising the reading, not the reflexes. Most candidates over-prepare the reasoning and arrive with untrained speed, which is backwards given how the clock dominates these formats.

Brain Preflight was built for the pilot version of these tests and trains the shared speed mechanics: timed mental arithmetic, memory under interference, concentration, monitoring and true combined multitasking, scored on a 1–9 applicant-normed scale. It does not cover data-interpretation tables, verbal reasoning or situational judgement — for those, practise the specific format. Free tier, works offline. We build it; this guide is part of the same project.

FAQ