This CogAT cheat sheet distills the Cognitive Abilities Test into a printable rundown of the nine subtests and the norm-referenced scores families actually see. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free CogAT toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
CogAT exam at a glance
- What it measures: Verbal, Quantitative, and Nonverbal reasoning — 3 batteries, 9 subtests
- Scoring: Norm-referenced — Standard Age Score (mean 100, SD 16), percentile ranks, stanines (1-9), Ability Profile
- No passing score: Not pass/fail; districts set gifted-program cutoffs, often around the 95th-98th percentile
- Timing: Lower levels untimed; Levels 9-17/18 about 10 minutes per subtest (~90 minutes total)
- Cost to student: None — schools administer it (published by Riverside Insights)
What’s on the CogAT cheat sheet
- Verbal Battery (~1/3) — Verbal Analogies, Sentence Completion, and Verbal Classification — reasoning with words, meaning, and categories, not spelling.
- Quantitative Battery (~1/3) — Number Analogies, Number Puzzles, and Number Series — spotting a numerical rule and applying it, with the arithmetic kept simple on purpose.
- Nonverbal Battery (~1/3) — Figure Matrices, Paper Folding, and Figure Classification — pattern reasoning with shapes only, using no words or numbers.
- Score-decoding strip — How USS becomes SAS, percentile ranks, stanines, and the Ability Profile code (like 9A or 7B(V+)) — so a report reads clearly.
How to use it in your final week
- Skim all nine subtests once a day so every format — verbal analogy, number series, figure matrix, paper folding — is instantly recognizable and nothing feels new on test day.
- Lock in the reasoning shortcuts: name the relationship before the choices on analogies, test constant difference then multiplier on number series, and remember holes = layers × punches on paper folding.
- Rehearse pacing for upper levels, which run about 10 minutes per subtest — pair each review pass with a short timed set to build a steady, move-on rhythm.
- Read the score-decoding strip so a report makes sense afterward: SAS (mean 100, SD 16), percentile ranks, stanines 1-9, and the Ability Profile pattern.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your CogAT practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
CogAT cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the CogAT cheat sheet downloads as a PDF at no cost and with no sign-up. It sits alongside Career Employer's free CogAT practice test, study guide, and flashcards, so the whole prep system is free to use.
It condenses the nine subtests into a quick reference organized by the three batteries — Verbal (analogies, sentence completion, classification), Quantitative (number analogies, puzzles, series), and Nonverbal (figure matrices, paper folding, figure classification) — plus a score-decoding strip for SAS, percentile ranks, stanines, and the Ability Profile.
No. The CogAT is norm-referenced, so it reports how a student compares with same-age and same-grade peers rather than a percent correct or a pass mark. Scores come as a Standard Age Score (mean 100, standard deviation 16), percentile ranks, and a 1-to-9 stanine; each district sets its own gifted-program cutoff, often around the 95th-98th percentile.
It's built from Riverside Insights' current CogAT test descriptions and scoring documentation, and we review it against those official sources so the battery structure, timing, and score types stay accurate.
Click the download button or the preview card at the top of this page to open the PDF instantly. Bookmark the page so it's easy to find again for a final review the night before the test.
References
- 1.Riverside Insights. “CogAT Assessment for K-12 — Cognitive Abilities Test.” riversideinsights.com, 2026. ↑
- 2.Riverside Insights. “CogAT — Test Descriptions.” riversideinsights.com, 2026. ↑
- 3.Riverside Insights. “Types of Scores (CogAT).” riversideinsights.com, 2026. ↑
- 4.Riverside Insights. “CogAT: Testing Time, Number of Items per Subtest and Completion Criteria.” riversideinsights.com, 2026. ↑
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