SHL Verify G+ (General Ability Test): Format and Cutoffs

The SHL Verify G+ is a 30-question general ability test scored against three sections: numerical, inductive, and deductive reasoning. The whole thing takes 36 minutes, which works out to roughly 72 seconds per question. Almost every major graduate scheme that screens with SHL uses Verify G+ as the gating round, and most of them set their cutoff between the 70th and 85th percentile. Below that, your CV does not reach a human.

This article covers what the test actually measures, how the question time per section shakes out, how percentiles and grade bands work, and the cutoff ranges different employer tiers tend to use. Format facts here follow SHL's own published candidate materials. The cutoff ranges are the ones candidates and careers teams widely report, not official SHL or employer figures, so treat them as indicative rather than guaranteed.

Quick takeaways

• The standard Verify G+ has 30 multiple-choice questions split 10 numerical, 10 inductive, 10 deductive, with a 36-minute total cap, not per-section.
• The Interactive Verify G+ is the newer variant: 24 adaptive questions, same 36 minutes, mobile-first, and the difficulty shifts based on your last answer.
• SHL converts your raw score into a percentile against a norm group and assigns a grade band: A is roughly top 15 percent, D is bottom quartile.
• Most competitive employers set their cutoff at the 80th percentile. Magic Circle law and MBB consulting typically expect the 85th percentile or higher.
• Time pressure is the real difficulty: candidates who finish report sub-60-second pacing on numerical and inductive, with deductive eating the bigger chunks.
• The same raw score becomes a different percentile depending on the norm group SHL applies. A graduate norm and an investment banking analyst norm score the same paper differently.

The card below summarises the format at a glance, then the rest of the article works through what gets tested where, how to read your percentile, and what each employer tier actually cuts at.

What SHL Verify G+ actually measures

Verify G+ is SHL's flagship cognitive ability test, sitting at the centre of the full SHL assessment family. It is designed to predict general workplace problem solving by combining three reasoning subtests into one composite score. The three subtests are not interchangeable, and the question style for each is different enough that practice on one does not transfer cleanly to the others.

The numerical section runs 10 questions over data tables, percentage shifts, ratios, and short word problems with embedded financial or commercial framing. Questions tend to be short to read but heavy on calculation. Calculator use is allowed, and most candidates lose points by burning time on lookup rather than on arithmetic. The numerical depth is similar to the standalone SHL Numerical Reasoning Test, just compressed into a tighter section, and the same compression applies to the standalone verbal module covered in SHL verbal reasoning format and sample questions.

The inductive section is the pattern-recognition piece. 10 questions, each showing a visual sequence of shapes that follow a rule, and your job is to pick what comes next or which item breaks the rule. There is no language to parse and no math to do. The trap is that the rules layer (rotation plus colour shift plus position change), so candidates who try to solve it intuitively miss the second rule and get the answer wrong with confidence.

The deductive section is verbal logic: short premises followed by candidate conclusions, and you mark which conclusion follows. 10 questions. This is where most candidates lose the most time because the reading is dense and the conclusions sound similar. SHL writes these to look like reasonable inferences when they actually require a stricter "must follow from the stated premises" standard.

A worked deductive item. This is the kind of item the deductive section uses:

Premises: All of the auditors in the Leeds office are qualified accountants. Priya works in the Leeds office. Conclusion: Priya is a qualified accountant.

It sounds right, but it does not follow. The premise covers the auditors in Leeds, not everyone who works there, so Priya could work in Leeds without being an auditor. The correct answer is cannot say. That gap between sounds reasonable and must follow from the stated premises is exactly what the deductive section tests, and it is where strong candidates still drop marks.

The two versions: standard MCQ and Interactive

Most employers still use the standard Verify G+, where you see all 30 questions in a fixed order and submit multiple-choice answers. The Interactive Verify G+ is the newer mobile-optimised variant. It has 24 questions instead of 30, runs the same 36 minutes, and the question difficulty adjusts based on your previous answers. The Interactive version is also more drag-and-drop than tap-an-answer, which slows candidates who practiced on the static version.

If your invitation email mentions "Verify Interactive" or shows the test on your phone first, you are likely on the Interactive variant. If it routes you to a desktop browser with a question counter showing "1 of 30," you are on the standard MCQ version. The percentile bands the employer sees are calibrated to be comparable across both versions, but the candidate experience is meaningfully different.

How the 36 minutes actually splits

The test is not divided by section. You get 36 minutes for the whole 30-question paper, and you can move between sections. That averages 72 seconds per question, but the sections do not deserve equal time. Here is a sensible pacing plan to rehearse so you are not budgeting it on the day:

Section	Questions	Target time	Why
Inductive	10	9 to 11 min	See the rule fast or skip; do not verify every shape
Numerical	10	12 to 14 min	Reading the table eats time before any arithmetic
Deductive	10	11 to 14 min	Densest reading; the must-follow standard is slow

The plan banks time on inductive, where overthinking is the main trap, to spend on deductive, where the reading load is heaviest. SHL does not penalise an unanswered question more harshly than a wrong one, but a skipped question still lowers your raw score, which maps straight to your percentile. Rehearse this split on timed practice papers until it is automatic, so you are pacing by instinct rather than watching the clock.

Score bands, grades, and the percentile system

SHL converts your raw score (out of 30) into a percentile by comparing your performance against a norm group. The norm group depends on the role level the employer selected when they bought the assessment. A graduate norm sets the bar lower than a senior analyst norm, so the same 23 out of 30 raw score can land at very different percentiles for different employers.

The percentile then maps to a letter grade. SHL's Verify grade bands put A at roughly the top 15 percent of the norm group and D in the bottom quarter, though the exact thresholds move with the norm, so treat those figures as approximate.

The same logic applies in reverse. If you are aiming at a 75th-percentile cutoff, you are not aiming at 23 out of 30, because the conversion is non-linear and norm-dependent. You are aiming at a performance level that beats 75 percent of the relevant norm group. That is why an employer states a percentile cutoff rather than a raw score like you need 21 out of 30, and why some candidates pass with a raw score below what they expected.

Employer cutoffs by tier

Cutoffs are set by each employer per role and per intake, and most firms do not publish them. What candidates and careers teams consistently report is a rough laddering by employer tier. Treat the ranges below as indicative, not official thresholds, and never as a raw-score target: SHL converts to a percentile against a norm group, so there is no fixed raw score behind a given percentile.

Employer tier	Typically reported cutoff
Magic Circle law and MBB consulting	around the 85th percentile or higher
Tier 1 investment banking	roughly the 75th to 85th percentile
Big Four and large professional services	roughly the 70th to 80th percentile
Large FTSE 100 and global corporates	roughly the 65th to 75th percentile
Mid-market and most graduate schemes	roughly the 60th to 70th percentile
Smaller and boutique schemes	roughly the 50th to 60th percentile

Two things shift this in practice. First, the same firm runs different cutoffs for different roles: a quantitative or research track usually cuts higher than a general analyst class. Second, SHL lets employers weight the three subtests, so a numbers-heavy role can lean on the numerical section and a research role on deductive. Aim comfortably above the band you are targeting rather than exactly at it.

Why this test is harder than candidates expect

Three things trip people who otherwise score well on practice papers.

The first is that 72 seconds per question is faster than it sounds. By the time you have read a numerical table or parsed a deductive premise pair, you are 30 seconds in, leaving 40 seconds to calculate and pick. Candidates who do not practice under timed conditions plan a pace that breaks on question 5.

The second is that the inductive section punishes overthinking. The shape series is designed so the correct rule is reachable in under 30 seconds if you spot it, but if you try to verify across every shape in the sequence you lose 90 seconds and still get it wrong. Candidates who outperform the SHL norm on inductive consistently report a "see the rule or skip it" mental rule.

The third is that the deductive section uses logical strictness that does not match everyday English. "Must follow" is not "probably follows." Conclusions that sound reasonable but introduce information not in the premises are wrong. This is the section where candidates who do well on numerical and inductive still lose 4 to 6 questions if they have not practiced the specific "valid syllogism" frame.

A 5-day prep plan that works under time pressure

Day 1 is diagnostic. Take a full 30-question Verify G+ paper under timed conditions, no calculator on numerical for at least the first half so you find your real arithmetic floor. Mark the section where you lose the most questions. That is the section to overweight on Days 2 and 3.

Day 2 hits the weakest section for 90 minutes. Do not move to the others yet. Most candidates discover deductive is the weakest after the diagnostic, and 90 minutes of pure deductive practice with worked solutions raises that section's score by more than spreading time across all three.

Day 3 hits the second weakest section. Same 90-minute block, same worked-solution rhythm.

Day 4 is full-paper mixed practice. Two full 30-question papers under timed conditions, with a 30-minute review between them. The point of Day 4 is to rebuild the pacing across sections, not to keep grinding on accuracy.

Day 5 is light review and rest. One 30-question paper in the morning to confirm pacing, then no test prep after lunch. Going into Verify G+ tired drops your inductive accuracy more than any other section because the visual pattern recognition is the first thing fatigue hits.

For a deeper structure on the per-section prep, the SHL Practice Tests article has worked walkthroughs by section type.

What employers actually see in their report

The employer receives a one-page report that shows your overall percentile, your section-level breakdown, your grade band, and how your performance compared to the norm group SHL applied to your test. Some employers also pay for the comparison-to-incumbents view, which shows how your scores rank against current employees in similar roles. They do not see your raw score in any meaningful way.

This is why begging for "feedback" from a rejection rarely produces a number. The employer is working from a percentile band and a yes/no on the cutoff, not from "you scored 19 out of 30." When firms do release information (Clifford Chance's training contract feedback is a known example), they cite the percentile, not the raw score. The Clifford Chance Watson-Glaser breakdown shows what published feedback at the firm level actually looks like.

FAQ

Is SHL Verify G+ adaptive?

The standard Verify G+ is not adaptive. All 30 questions are fixed, and you can move between sections. The Interactive Verify G+ is adaptive: the difficulty of the next question adjusts based on whether you got the last one right.

How is Verify G+ different from Verify Interactive?

Verify G+ is the standard 30-question fixed-order test. Verify Interactive is 24 adaptive questions optimised for mobile, with a drag-and-drop interface instead of multiple-choice taps. Both use the same 36-minute cap and produce comparable percentile reports for the employer.

What is a good Verify G+ score?

For most graduate schemes, the 80th percentile is the practical pass mark. For Magic Circle law and MBB consulting, you want 85th percentile or higher. For mid-tier corporates and smaller schemes, the 60th to 70th percentile range is usually enough.

Can you retake the SHL Verify G+ if you fail?

Most employers do not allow a same-cycle retake. SHL generates a verification test, a shorter follow-up under stricter conditions, if your unsupervised score looks unusually high. That is a verification, not a retake. Some firms permit a fresh attempt in the next graduate cycle.

Is there a calculator on the SHL Verify G+?

The numerical section allows an on-screen calculator on the standard version. The Interactive variant gives you a calculator panel as well. Mental arithmetic on the easier questions is faster than typing, and most candidates who finish report they only used the calculator on roughly 4 of the 10 numerical questions.

What raw score do I need to pass?

There is no fixed raw score because SHL converts to percentile against a norm group. A raw score that maps to the 80th percentile for one employer can map to the 65th for a different employer using a tougher norm. Aim for the percentile band, not the raw number. The score-bands table earlier in this article gives the raw zones candidates report at each percentile.

Can I prep for SHL Verify G+ in a week?

Yes, with the right structure. The 5-day plan above produces a measurable gain because the failure modes (pacing, the inductive "see the rule" rhythm, the deductive validity standard) are addressable with targeted practice. How far you move depends on where you start and how strong your arithmetic already is, but the gains come from fixing specific failure modes, not from grinding through volume.

Do all companies use the same cutoff?

No. Cutoffs are set by the employer per role and per intake. The same firm can run a 75th-percentile cut for its graduate scheme and a 60th-percentile cut for its apprenticeship route. The cutoff table in this article shows typical bands by tier, not fixed firm-by-firm numbers.

Related on PrepClubs

• Pillar. SHL Verify G+ pillar page. Full guide to the test family with a free starter set.
• Practice. SHL General Ability practice test. Full-length SHL Verify G+ style forms: 30 questions in 36 minutes across numerical, deductive, and inductive reasoning, with worked explanations, in English and Japanese.
• Compare. SHL Practice Tests: Free Walkthroughs by Section. Section-by-section worked examples.
• Article. SHL Numerical Reasoning Test: Format, Practice, and Cutoffs. The numerical section in deeper depth.
• Article. SHL Assessment: All the Tests Explained. Where Verify G+ sits in the wider SHL family.

Practice on PrepClubs

What PrepClubs offers for SHL candidates.

PrepClubs runs eight full-length SHL Verify G+ style practice tests. Each form has 30 multiple-choice questions in 36 minutes (10 numerical, 10 deductive, 10 inductive), calculator allowed, with a worked explanation for every question, in English and Japanese. The forms follow the standard fixed-order format rather than the adaptive Interactive version, and they are independent practice material, not affiliated with SHL.

Start the SHL General Ability practice test

For SHL's own candidate materials and example questions, see SHL's official practice tests.

Last updated: October 2026.