Watson-Glaser scores, percentiles and pass marks

You answer 40 questions; the number right is your raw score, and it is converted into a percentile by comparing it with a norm group, such as UK graduates. A 75th percentile means you did better than 75% of that group.

The employer picks the group. The same raw score sits lower against a group of experienced professionals than against a general graduate group, so a percentile only means something next to the group it was measured against.

Not necessarily. 30 out of 40 is 75% correct, which is a different number from the 75th percentile. Where 30 lands depends on how the norm group scored: if most of the group got above 30, it is below the 75th percentile.

This is the most common misreading of figures online. Some prep sites quote a raw target, such as roughly 30 to 35 out of 40 for competitive firms; others quote a percentile. Neither comes from Pearson or a law firm.

None of the firms we checked publishes one. What they do publish is how the test fits their process, which tells you how much rides on it.

At a firm that uses it as a gate, such as Clifford Chance, your score decides whether a person reads your application at all. At DLA Piper the test is untimed, so the cut-off is a pure accuracy bar.

Nobody outside the firms knows, and the firms do not say. Prep sites commonly put competitive law firms somewhere around the 70th to 80th percentile, and some candidates report that cut-offs move with the number of applicants in a cycle. Use those as a sense of scale, not a target.

The practical target is simpler: be strong in all five sections, because a gate test is decided by your total and one weak section drags it down. Our free practice test shows you a bar for each section.

Reports usually group the five sections into three: Recognise assumptions (the assumptions section), Evaluate arguments (the arguments section) and Draw conclusions (inference, deduction and interpretation together).

If you get a report, the lowest of the three is where to practise. If you do not, our practice test's section bars do the same job.

It is the number right out of 20, with a bar for each section. It is not a Watson-Glaser percentile: we have no norm group, so we do not convert it. Read it this way instead.