Published 24 October 2026

Aptitude Tests in Fresher Hiring: What Companies Ask and How to Prepare

Before a human ever sees your resume, most large companies make you clear an online test. TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Accenture and most banks and product companies all run some version of it. Freshers often treat this test as luck. It is not. It is the most predictable, most preparable stage of the entire hiring process.

What the Test Usually Contains

Formats vary by company, but the building blocks repeat:

• Numerical ability. Percentages, profit and loss, ratios, time and work, time speed and distance, averages and simple interest. School level maths, asked at speed.
• Logical reasoning. Coding and decoding, blood relations, directions, seating arrangements, series completion and syllogisms.
• Verbal ability. Reading comprehension, sentence correction, synonyms and antonyms, and paragraph ordering.
• Technical sections. For IT roles: pseudocode questions, basic output prediction in C, Java or Python, and fundamentals of databases and operating systems.
• Coding round. For programmer roles at companies like Infosys and Amazon, one or two coding problems on data structures and algorithms. This round often decides your salary tier, not just your selection.

Most tests are timed section by section, with negative marking in some. Speed with accuracy is the whole game.

The Two Week Plan

You do not need months. You need fourteen focused days.

Days 1 to 4: Revise the maths formulas and reasoning patterns. Learn the shortcuts: percentage tables, squares up to 30, and the standard time and work methods. Speed comes from shortcuts, not from talent.

Days 5 to 10: Take one timed mock test every day. Free mocks exist on the hiring platforms and prep sites. Review every wrong answer the same day and write down why you missed it. This review step is where the learning happens.

Days 11 to 14: Practise the exact company's pattern if it is known. Patterns for the big service companies are widely documented. For coding roles, solve two problems a day on arrays, strings and basic data structures.

Test Day Rules That Save Marks

Read the section instructions before the timer starts in your head. Never spend more than ninety seconds stuck on one question; mark it and move on, because easy marks are waiting later in the paper. Attempt order matters more than attempt count in sections without negative marking. Keep your ID, admit card and a rough sheet ready, and test your internet and webcam a day early for proctored tests.

The Honest Truth About Cutoffs

No company publishes its cutoff, and anyone selling you the exact number is guessing. What is consistent across companies: clearing roughly sixty to seventy percent of the paper with balanced section scores gets most candidates through. One very strong section rarely saves a very weak one, because most tests have sectional cutoffs. Prepare all sections, respect the clock, and the test becomes the easiest stage to clear, simply because it is the one stage fully in your control.