If you’re getting ready to take the first step in achieving your dreams, then it is very likely that you are expecting to take several college entrance tests.
Although you can just ‘wing it’ like what you’ve probably done in the past, doing so when your chance at joining your university of choice is on the line would be very unwise.
Unlike your standard college admissions test, students are expected to pass Wonderlic Scholastic Level Exam (SLE) test score requirements with flying colors, especially if they are prestigious or known to produce many highly skilled professionals in a particular field.
Apart from knowing that the Wonderlic SLE is an entrance exam of sorts, what else do you need to know about it?
The minimum passing score is dependent on what course you are pursuing
It is known that each student must meet a certain score when trying to go through its admissions process for the college that they want.
But what they don’t tell you upfront is that this ‘passing score’ that you must get in the Wonderlic exam is completely dependent on which course you are trying to take, and this can vary from course to course and from college to college as well.
For example, students aiming to enter the accountancy program may need to get a score of at least 26, while those aiming for criminal justice only need to get 17.
In a way, this functions like the NFL Wonderlic test score expectations for each player position.
By meeting this score, they are proving to talent scouts that not only are they physically fit, but they also have the cognitive skills needed to succeed in the position that they are playing in.
The test is designed to measure a person’s cognitive skills in general
Unlike other exams where you need to read up on certain subjects like American history or trigonometry, the Wonderlic SLE only aims to figure out the core cognitive skills of an individual.
These would be a person’s:
- Verbal reasoning skills
- Numerical reasoning skills
- Logical reasoning skills
- Graphical literacy skills
This is part of the reason why the Wonderlic test is used because this exam is simple and flexible to a point that nearly every student from all states, from all walks of life, will have a good chance of passing it no matter their educational background.
You will have more problems with the time limit than the subjects
The contents of the exam aren’t all too difficult, and everyone can get a high or even a perfect score if it was given to them; without time constraints.
When officially administered in a live testing environment, the test-taker has to answer the 50-item question set of the Wonderlic SLE within the 12-minute time limit.
Unprepared students, or those who are not that great at math or even at the verbal reasoning subjects, tend to panic, make the wrong assumption or calculation, and then lose a point because they chose the wrong answer.
With time running out constantly and with the pressure on them to get into college, students tend to panic during an exam and thus couldn’t go through the exam with 100% efficiency.
This is why it is important that you study and prepare well for the Wonderlic test as well as its timed nature so that this won’t happen to you.
Some questions are designed to try and make you fail
Another reason why the exam is difficult for many is students is because many questions, usually those in the numerical reasoning part of the test, are so-called ‘time trap questions’.
These questions are, although answerable if you put your mind to it, are too complex or complicated to go through within the allotted time of the Wonderlic if you’re aiming to answer every question in it.
Why? Well, if you want to spend the same amount of time for each question, you only have around 14 or so seconds to spare.
If you spend even more than a second over on a single question, you will risk being unable to answer the rest.
When it comes to time trap questions, most students would choose to skip them or make an educated guess so that they can at least have a chance of landing a point because there is no penalty for guessing in the Wonderlic SLE.
Since each question is only worth one point no matter how difficult or easy it is, this can be a viable tactic because this allows you to allot more time on the ones you are more likely to answer correctly.
