Spatial Aptitude Tests Measure Your Spatial Abilities

Spatial aptitude tests measure your cognitive and perceptual abilities with space and shapes. Your scores are compared with results of other candidates, vying for the same spatiality focused job. Your imagination, visualization, and critical reasoning play a vital role to determine your spatial skills. The spatial ability tests are designed around geometry, physics, chemistry and mechanical problems, depending upon the nature of your applied job.

What is Spatial Ability? 

Einstein replies:

"My elements of thought are not words but 'certain signs and more or less reproduce-able images.'"

Your spatial ability is your skill to analyze, visualize, comprehend and express these imaginative signs and shapes. It helps you to identify forms from the patterns and vice versa. It assists you to solve critical problems in the complex real world. But more importantly, a developed spatial ability helps you to get contract letter for your dream specific job.

The spatial ability starts growing from your childhood. Male sex type activities; cricket, football, basketball and computer games are considered stimuli behind the active development of spatial skills. However, the gender difference is depleting with the passage of time.

Spatial aptitude tests have been getting the consistent attention of the psychologists for the last couple of decades. The ideas of Dr. Howard Gardner have opened a new window for the aptitude testing industry. He theorized against general belief that intelligence is not a single measurable entity. He said that spatial ability is one of the eight cognitive skills which may be collectively called information.

Then Thurstone described three types of spatial ability.

i-    Your ability to visualize rotation and to flip over of the shapes and diagrams.

ii-    Your ability to reorient objects from different angles. And…

iii-    Finding relations between different spatial objects.

Spatial Aptitude tests and the Related Careers

Specific careers are categorized with better spatial ability. Such works necessarily require you to utilize your visualization, conceptions, and imaginations in daily routine work. A few of such careers include:

Natural Sciences

All natural sciences require a certain degree of spatial capability to build theories and pass them through experiments. You are required to visualize the complex structure of atoms and movement of its particles. You have to draw an inference from the complex structure of cells to solve medical problems. You are required to express your imaginations either upon paper or in models.

Math Related Jobs

When you score better on spatial tests, you are likely to score in numerical aptitude tests. Though it is not always necessary that you use your numerical skills to solve spatial problems, but in most of the cases you have to learn it. In fact same kind of thought stream works behind the both abilities. Thus spatial ability is equally essential for careers in math, physics, accounting, auditing, economics, etc.

Engineering

The spatial development is considered very important when you are looking for an engineering career.

Understandably, you need to build designs in your mind before you can put those on paper even. If you are looking for a career as a mechanical engineer, it becomes even more critical.

Architects

Architects, like engineers, have to use their spatial skills to build their models. Then they have to visualize a lot before they are satisfied with structure and design of their work.

Computer Related Careers

The computer technology is highly spatial. It is not surprising that computers have been playing an essential role in developing your spatial skills. When you are looking for a career in hardware or software industry, you need a certain degree of spatial capability. However, when you are looking for an online job, you merely need to know and love your subject. There is at least one company which guarantees your online success without any technical or spatial capabilities.

Sub Factors

The concept of spatial ability is still growing. The new developments have given birth to certain sub-factors which spatial aptitude tests take into account.

Manipulation of Shapes

The spatial aptitude tests are all about manipulation of shapes. Your reasoning with shapes is tested in many ways:

•    Most of the spatial aptitude tests contain two, three or multidimensional shapes. You are required to reason with the given dimensions to reach the right conclusion. Such tests are also called spatial reasoning tests.

•    Spatial ability tests offer different sizes of shapes. You may identify forms from the patterns or vice versa, depending upon the dimensions. The shapes may change their patterns with the change of sizes.

•    Some problems may contain different planes with different shapes. The diagrams are rotated in the aircraft to see how much sharp your memory is. You may be offered 2-D or 3-D shapes to know their direction of rotation in the planes. Such tests are also called spatial memory tests.

•    You may be required to visualize disintegration of a shape in parts and reassemble them at another place. You have to find out a topographical relation between different shapes.

•    You may be required to see objects from a different angle. You need to become part of the problems and reorient your position with other objects. Such tests are called spatial orientation tests.

Measurement

The spatial aptitude tests also measure your capability to measure length, width, and volume of an object. You are required to estimate diagrams as per given units of measurement.

Depiction of Imagery

Some spatial aptitude tests require you to depict your imagination in shapes and models for superior engineering, mechanical and science careers. You may also be necessary to describe shapes and models with your reasoning to reach a logical conclusion.

Navigation Capability

It is another subfactor of the spatial aptitude tests. Your perceptions of directions and positions are tested. You may be required to use an actual compass or directional model to read a map.

How to Encounter Spatial Aptitude Tests?

It is true that you start developing spatial ability early in your childhood. However, the experiments have proved that more exposure to spatial experience and training result in a sharp rise of the scoring in spatial aptitude tests.

When you start your session, keep calm. If all things stand equal, it is your current state of mind that can create a real difference. You may find some questions difficult to answer at first sight. Skip them for the moment. When you come back, your brain would make the answer more comfortable to be identified.

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