Hogan HBRI Test
Do you have an upcoming Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI)? Practise the question types under time pressure, see where you lose points and go into the real test prepared.
About the Hogan HBRI Test
The HBRI (Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory) is the cognitive ability test from Hogan Assessments.
It measures how well you solve problems and make decisions with the kind of information you meet at work: tables, charts, rules, plans and short business texts. Employers mainly use it when they hire and develop managers and professionals.
The HBRI is often taken together with Hogan’s personality questionnaires (HPI, HDS and MVPI). Our practice package trains the reasoning test, not the personality questionnaires.
How is the HBRI Test Structured?
The HBRI is a multiple-choice test of 24 questions. In the timed version you have about 30 minutes, which is 75 seconds per question.
The questions are a mix of two kinds of reasoning:
Qualitative reasoning is about words, logic and visual information: analogies, conclusions that must follow from a set of rules, weaknesses in an argument or a policy, flow charts, organisation charts and figure patterns.
Quantitative reasoning is about numbers: tables and charts, business calculations such as percentages, margins and ratios, number series and spatial tasks.
The two kinds of question come in mixed order, so you have to switch quickly between ways of thinking.
Your result is compared with a norm group. There is no pass mark, but the employer sees how you score against other candidates, overall and on qualitative and quantitative reasoning.
Wrong answers are not penalised in our practice tests, so it is better to guess than to leave a question blank. Practise without a calculator: all the numbers can be worked out by hand.
HBRI Question Types
01Analogies and Logical Deduction
In an analogy you find the word that completes a relationship. In a deduction question you get two or three statements or a set of rules and decide which conclusion must be true.
Example
“Every order above €500 is approved by a manager. Order K was not approved by a manager.”
The only conclusion that must be true is that Order K was not above €500. Whether it was €500 or €5 is not something the statements tell you.
Read exactly what is stated. The most common mistake is to choose a conclusion that sounds likely but does not follow.
02Critical Reasoning: Arguments and Policies
You read a short business text and judge it: what weakens or strengthens the conclusion, which assumption it depends on, or what the biggest problem with a policy is. Some questions ask whether a statement is true, false or cannot be decided from the text.
Example
“A call centre pays a bonus for every call that takes less than three minutes. Since then, more customers have had to call twice.”
The biggest problem with the policy is that it rewards short calls rather than solved problems.
Look for what the policy actually rewards and for facts the text leaves out. Sometimes the right answer is that there is no problem.
03Flow Charts, Organisation Charts and Project Plans
A figure shows a process, a reporting structure or a project plan, and you apply it to a concrete case: who approves this request, who is the manager of whose manager, which task can be delayed without moving the deadline.
Example
A flow chart sends purchases over €5,000 to one decision and all other purchases to the team manager. A request of exactly €5,000 is not “over €5,000”, so it goes to the team manager.
Follow the figure one step at a time and take limits literally. Do not skip ahead to the box that looks most reasonable.
04Tables, Charts and Decisions Based on Data
You read a table or a chart and calculate with the figures: shares, growth, averages and ratios. In the decision questions you choose between suppliers, candidates or machines against a set of requirements, or you find the correct basis for a decision that has been made.
Example
Branch A has 18 complaints and 12 employees; Branch B has 14 complaints and 7 employees. Branch B has fewer complaints, but 2.0 per employee against 1.5 in Branch A.
First remove the options that break a requirement, then compare what is left. Check whether the question asks for a number or for a share.
05Business Calculations and Number Series
Short text problems about prices, discounts, margins, commissions, interest, capacity and ratios, most of them with two or three steps. In number series you find the rule and give the next number.
Example
A price is raised by 25% and then lowered by 20%. It ends where it started, because 1.25 × 0.80 = 1.00. Percentages that follow each other are multiplied, not added.
The wrong options are built on typical mistakes, such as taking a percentage of the wrong amount, so an answer that appears among the options is not necessarily right.
06Figure Patterns and Spatial Reasoning
In pattern questions you find the rules in a row or a grid of figures and pick the figure that continues it. In spatial questions you recognise a shape after it has been turned, or work out how many boxes a drawing contains.
Example
In a row of boxes, a dot moves one corner clockwise each time while the number of lines repeats 1, 2, 3. The next box must fit both rules at once.
Take one feature at a time. In rotation questions, a mirror image can never be produced by turning the shape.
Free HBRI Test
Try an HBRI-style test – it is free and requires no account! The test is in English and has 12 questions in 15 minutes. It is at the hard end and built around the typical traps, and you get your score straight away.
Premium Access to HBRI Tests
- 10 x different test sets (5 full-length and 5 half-length)
- 180 test questions with explanations
- Your score for each of 11 question types
- All test sets are in English
- Access to all tests is valid for 90 days.
- Train for an improved HBRI score.
Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the premium version of Test The Talent!
