Talogy (Cubiks) Assessment: Tests, Process & How to Prepare

Talogy (Cubiks) Assessment: Tests, Process & How to Prepare

Your invitation says "Talogy". Or it says "Cubiks". Or both, and you are wondering whether you have been sent two different assessments. You haven't. This guide explains who Talogy is, how the Cubiks name fits in, what happens from invitation to result, what each test looks like (with example questions we wrote ourselves), and how to prepare without wasting your evenings on the wrong material.

Who Is Talogy, and Where Did Cubiks Go?

Cubiks was a European test publisher best known for its Logiks reasoning tests and the PAPI personality questionnaire. It was acquired by PSI, a US testing company whose talent management division went on a long buying spree: Cubiks, Caliper, Select International, IPAT (the publisher of the 16PF), OPRA and a dozen more. In March 2022 PSI Talent Management brought all of those businesses together under one new name: Talogy.

That history explains the confusion. The company is Talogy, but many products kept their old labels because employers and candidates knew them. So you will see "Cubiks Logiks", "Cubiks Factors" and "Cubiks Dilemmas" on a Talogy platform, and older recruiting pages that still say "Cubiks PSI". The Cubiks Online candidate platform was rebranded to Talogy in spring 2022, but plenty of employer job pages were never updated.

For you the practical conclusion is simple: "Talogy assessment", "Cubiks test" and "Cubiks assessment" describe the same family of tests. What matters is which tests your employer picked from that family, at which level.

If you have taken an SHL test or a Korn Ferry assessment before, the overall shape will feel familiar. The details are what differ, and the details are what cost points.

The Candidate Journey

1. The invitation. An email from the employer or directly from the Talogy platform, with a deadline and a link. It normally lists the tests you will take. Write them down: the invitation is the only reliable source for which tests and levels are yours.

2. Registration and instructions. You log in, accept the conditions and see an introduction per test, usually with a few practice items. Use them: they show you the layout and whether you can go back.

3. The ability tests. Timed, unsupervised, usually at home. Some combined tests are split into separately timed sections, so running out of time in the verbal part does not eat into the numerical part, but it also means you cannot borrow time from an easy section to rescue a hard one.

4. The questionnaires. Personality or behavioural questionnaires and, for some roles, the Dilemmas situational judgement test. These are usually untimed or generously timed.

5. The result. Most employers simply tell you whether you move on to an interview or assessment centre. Some share a feedback report. Some re-test strong candidates under supervision later.

Logiks Ability Tests: Intermediate vs Advanced

Logiks is the reasoning test family that came from Cubiks. It covers three areas: verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning. Employers can use them as a combined "General" test or as standalone tests per area. Each comes in an intermediate and an advanced version.

Why the level matters more than with most publishers: the two versions do not just differ in difficulty, they differ in style.

• Intermediate versions are typically used for administrative, operational and customer-facing roles. The individual items are short and relatively simple; the challenge is speed. You will need to answer a lot of questions with only seconds per item, and hesitating is the main way to lose points.
• Advanced versions are used for graduate, professional and managerial roles. Items are longer: reading passages, data tables, multi-step calculations. You get more time per question but each one asks more of you.

Prepare for intermediate with advanced material and you will practise slow, careful reading for a test that rewards fast reflexes. Prepare for advanced with intermediate material and the real test will feel like a different sport. Check your invitation, and if it does not say, ask the recruiter.

Verbal Reasoning

At intermediate level, verbal items tend to be short word tasks: words with opposite meanings, verbal analogies and simple logical statements (syllogisms). At advanced level you get a passage of text followed by statements to evaluate.

Example (our own, intermediate style): "All the regional managers attended the training. Sarah did not attend the training. Is Sarah a regional manager?" Answer: no. If every regional manager attended and Sarah did not attend, she cannot be one.

Example (our own, advanced style): a passage says a company "expects to open two new offices next year, subject to funding approval". The statement to judge: "The company will open two new offices next year." The passage only says it expects to, on a condition. So the statement goes further than the text, and the correct response is that you cannot say it is true from the passage. This "true, false or cannot say" logic trips up more candidates than any vocabulary item; our guide to true / false / cannot say questions breaks it down step by step.

Numerical Reasoning

Intermediate numerical items are short calculations and basic data reading: percentages, simple ratios, a value from a small table. Advanced items give you tables or charts in a business setting and ask questions that need two or three steps.

Example (our own, advanced style): a table shows a department had 40 staff in Year 1 and 46 in Year 2, with total salary costs of €2.0 million and €2.3 million. Question: did the average salary per employee rise, fall or stay the same? Year 1: 2.0 / 40 = €50,000. Year 2: 2.3 / 46 = €50,000. It stayed the same, even though both headcount and total cost rose 15%.

Abstract Reasoning

Abstract items use shapes rather than words or numbers. You look at a sequence or a set of figures, work out the rule that connects them and apply it.

Example (our own): in a series of five squares, a black dot moves one corner clockwise each step, and a line inside the square alternates between horizontal and vertical. Which figure comes next? You need both rules at once: the dot's next corner and the line's next orientation. Method: isolate one feature (position, colour, count, rotation), check whether it changes in a regular way, then move to the next feature. Do not try to "see" the whole pattern in one glance under time pressure.

Personality Questionnaires: PAPI and Factors

Talogy offers several personality and behavioural questionnaires. The two you are most likely to meet as an ex-Cubiks candidate are PAPI and Factors.

PAPI (Personality and Preference Inventory) looks at how you prefer to work: how you relate to rules, deadlines, people, leadership and change. It exists in different formats. The normative version asks you to rate single statements on an agree-disagree scale. The ipsative version uses forced choice: two statements, and you must pick the one that describes you better, even when both or neither fit.

Factors (often seen as Cubiks Factors) is a broader personality questionnaire used in selection to describe your work style against the requirements of a role.

How to approach forced choice honestly

Forced choice frustrates people because it feels like a trick. "I like working to clear rules" versus "I like to take the lead in groups": what if both are true? Then pick the one that is more true, more often, at work. That is all the format asks.

A few principles that actually help:

• Think about your behaviour at work, not your ideal self. Answer as the colleague people would recognise, not the person in your cover letter.
• Do not hunt for the "right" profile. Forced-choice formats are designed to make faking hard: favouring one desirable trait means giving up another. Candidates who try to game it tend to end up with an inconsistent profile that matches no role at all.
• Be consistent, not rigid. Similar themes return in different wording; context-driven differences are fine.

There is no pass mark, but your profile may shape your interview: "tell me about a time you followed a procedure you disagreed with" often comes straight from a questionnaire result.

The Dilemmas SJT

Dilemmas is Talogy's situational judgement test from the Cubiks range. You read short, realistic work scenarios and judge which responses are most and least effective. It measures how you handle people, pressure and priorities, and employers often tailor the scenarios to their own context.

Example (our own): you are finishing a report due to your manager at 17:00. At 15:30 a colleague from another team asks you to urgently check figures for a client presentation tomorrow morning. Options:

A. Drop the report and help your colleague, since a client is involved. B. Tell your colleague you are busy and suggest they ask someone else. C. Explain your deadline, offer to check the figures after 17:00 or first thing tomorrow, and ask whether that works. D. Ask your manager to extend your deadline so you can help.

Most effective: C. It protects your own commitment, takes the colleague's problem seriously and solves it by agreement. Least effective: B, which is not wrong but does nothing for a colleague with a genuine client issue. A risks missing a promised deadline without telling anyone; D pushes the problem upwards before you have tried to solve it yourself.

Notice the pattern: the strongest answers in an SJT are usually the ones that communicate, take ownership and balance competing interests. Heroic and passive extremes rarely score best.

Scoring and Norm Groups

Ability tests are scored by counting correct answers and then comparing that raw score with a norm group: a reference sample of people who took the same test, ideally similar to you (for example graduates, or applicants for administrative roles). Your result is then expressed as a percentile, a band or a standardised score. A percentile of 70 means you scored as well as or better than 70% of that norm group.

Two cautious points. First, which norm group is used is the employer's choice, and it matters: the same raw score looks very different against a general population sample than against graduate applicants for a competitive scheme. Second, there is no universal "Talogy pass mark". Each employer sets its own threshold, and many look at the overall picture (several tests plus a questionnaire) rather than one number.

Questionnaires and Dilemmas are scored against a role profile: no "higher is better", only better or worse fit.

An Honest Preparation Plan

You cannot memorise Talogy answers: questions come from item banks. What you can do is remove every source of avoidable error: unfamiliar formats, rusty arithmetic, poor time management, and nerves. A plan for the week you have:

Day 1: Identify your tests. List exactly which Logiks tests and levels you were invited to, plus any questionnaires. If unclear, ask. If you are new to online testing in general, our overview of online aptitude tests covers the basics of formats and timing.

Days 2–4: Practise the right format at the right level. Do timed practice for each area on your list, at your level. For intermediate, focus on speed drills: many short items, strict time. For advanced, focus on accuracy with longer items and on reading questions precisely. Label every mistake (misread, calculation slip, logic error, out of time) so you know what to fix. Our Talogy assessment practice is built around these test types and levels.

Day 5: Fix your weakest area. One focused session there beats another round on your strongest. If your invitation uses the old branding, the Cubiks test practice covers the same Logiks formats under that name.

Day 6: Questionnaires and Dilemmas. Read the forced-choice instructions so the format does not surprise you, and work through a few SJT scenarios with the employer's values in mind.

Day 7: The real thing. Quiet room, stable internet, scrap paper, phone away. Start fresh, not at 23:30 before the deadline.

During the test: do not get stuck. A question you cannot solve in a reasonable time is costing you two you could have solved. Check whether wrong answers are penalised (the instructions will say); if they are not, never leave an item blank.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a Cubiks test the same as a Talogy test?

Yes, in practice. Cubiks became part of PSI Talent Management, which rebranded as Talogy in 2022. Many tests still carry the Cubiks name, such as Cubiks Logiks, so your invitation may use either brand.

Should I prepare for Logiks intermediate or advanced?

Check your invitation or ask the recruiter. Intermediate versions are usually used for operational and administrative roles and test speed on simpler items; advanced versions are used for graduate and professional roles and involve longer passages and multi-step data. Practising the wrong level gives you the wrong rhythm.

Can you fail the PAPI or Factors personality questionnaire?

There is no pass mark, but your profile is compared with what the role needs and can influence decisions. Answer honestly and consistently; trying to guess the ideal profile usually produces a profile that fits nobody.

How is the Talogy assessment scored?

Ability tests are usually scored by comparing your raw score with a norm group of similar candidates and expressed as a percentile or band. Each employer sets its own cut-off, and many look at the combination of tests rather than one score.

How long does the Talogy assessment take?

It depends on which tests the employer selected. Your invitation lists the tests and their time limits, so read it before you start rather than relying on numbers from forums.

Conclusion

Talogy and Cubiks are two names for one test family, which is why your invitation can look confusing. Once you get past the branding, the assessment is predictable: Logiks reasoning tests at intermediate or advanced level, a personality questionnaire such as PAPI or Factors, and sometimes the Dilemmas SJT. The candidates who struggle are usually the ones who met the format for the first time with the clock running. Find out exactly which tests you face, practise those under realistic time limits, answer the questionnaires as yourself, and you will walk into the real thing with nothing left to surprise you.