CAT4

Understand your students beyond academic performance.

The Cognitive Abilities Test: Fourth Edition (CAT4) is a UK-developed and normed assessment designed to measure students’ cognitive abilities and predict academic outcomes. CAT4 evaluates reasoning skills across four distinct areas, helping educators understand each student’s unique learning style and cognitive strengths. Available in both paper-based and digital formats, CAT4 meets your school’s unique needs—whether you prefer traditional methods or are ready to embrace digital assessment.

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COMPREHENSIVE INIGHTS

Fair and Reliable

CAT4 assessments are independent of any curriculum or prior learning, ensuring fair evaluation of every student, regardless of their educational background. With three out of four tests not reliant on English proficiency, CAT4 is ideal for evaluating students with English as an Additional Language (EAL). CAT4 is a powerful diagnostic tool designed to help schools uncover student potential beyond the classroom. Available in both paper-based and digital formats, CAT4 meets your school’s unique needs – whether you prefer traditional methods or are ready to embrace digital assessment.

Comprehensive Cognitive Profiling

CAT4 assesses four critical areas of reasoning: verbal, non-verbal, quantitative, and spatial. This multifaceted approach provides a holistic view of a student’s cognitive abilities, enabling educators to identify both strengths and areas for development beyond traditional academic assessments.

Unbiased Assessment Across Diverse Student Populations

Designed independently of any specific curriculum, CAT4 offers a fair evaluation of students’ abilities, regardless of their educational background. Its structure minimises reliance on language proficiency, making it particularly effective for assessing students with English as an Additional Language (EAL).

Predictive Insights for Academic Achievement

By establishing a baseline of developed abilities, CAT4 provides reliable indicators for future academic performance. It aids in setting challenging yet attainable targets and supports strategic planning for interventions, ensuring that each student is guided towards reaching their full potential.

Actionable Reporting for Informed Decision-Making

CAT4 delivers detailed reports that are both tabular and graphical, making data interpretation straightforward for educators, students, and parents. These reports include narratives that contextualise the results, facilitating meaningful discussions and informed decisions regarding teaching strategies and student support.

Implementation and Support

Implementing CAT4 is straightforward, with options for digital or paper-based administration. GL Education provides extensive support, including training sessions, user guides, and customer service, to ensure schools can effectively utilise CAT4 data to enhance student learning outcomes.

Set Goals That Stretch — Without Breaking

Turn insight into action with CAT4’s predictive data and value-added analysis

CAT4 isn’t just about understanding cognitive ability — it’s about using that understanding to drive achievement. Whether you’re setting academic targets or evaluating school performance, CAT4 gives you the data to support ambitious, informed, and fair decision-making.

Setting Challenging but Realistic Targets

Use CAT4 at the start of secondary school to establish a reliable baseline of student ability. With this foundation, you can guide subject choices, support differentiated instruction, and set expectations that challenge students without overwhelming them.
CAT4 indicators help translate cognitive data into actionable predictions for academic performance, creating a clear, evidence-backed path forward.

Value-Added Service

Developed in partnership with FFT, our Value-Added Service uses a combination of CAT4 scores, demographic data, and student background (including gender and birth month) to measure progress more accurately.
This service creates a personalised value-added score for each student by comparing predicted outcomes to actual performance, giving your school deeper insight into its true impact across students, subjects, and year levels.