Hi Jessica, would you mind explaining the percentile system? That would be very helpful, thanks!
You complete the assessment and are given a raw score. This is not necessarily just getting something like 25 out of 30 questions correct though. The raw score will include any weighting on specific questions or any systems like negative scoring. It may even include a calculation on how long it took you to complete the assessment
Your raw score is the placed in a ranking based on the order of performance against the raw scores from a sample of people who have also completed the test. Those with the lowest raw scores will be at the bottom of the rankings and the highest raw scores at the top.
Your result could be compared to your fellow applicants, current trainees, or possibly even senior leaders within the firm. These are called “norm groups”. It is not unknown for you to be compared and ranked against a norm group who are people who have been educated up to GCSE level though, although the most common norm groups are “general graduate” norm groups, a previous recruitment cycle’s applicants, or sometimes a “law graduate” norm group.
So if you perform better than the average applicant in the norm group, you’ll get a high percentile ranking. But at the same time you could technically get the majority of the questions correct and have a high raw score but still get a low percentile ranking if the vast majority of people in the norm group had a higher raw score than you.
Let’s use the below image as an example of a norm group and we are looking at Robin, Robin would have an 80th percentile ranking in this situation, despite only scoring 61.
Let me know if you have any questions about this.