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CAT4 Scores Explained: SAS, Stanines, Percentiles and What Counts as a Good Score

CAT4 scores arrive as a sheet of numbers that mean little until someone explains the scale. The headline figure is the standard age score (SAS), where 100 is exactly average for a child's age and scores run from 69 to 141. Alongside it come a stanine from 1 to 9 and a national percentile rank. This guide explains each number, what counts as a good CAT4 score, what the verbal and spatial profile tells you, and what schools do with the results.

What CAT4 measures

CAT4, the Cognitive Abilities Test published by GL Assessment, is a reasoning test rather than a test of what a child has been taught. GL describes it as the most widely used test of reasoning abilities for children aged 6 to 17 and over in the UK and Ireland, taken by more than three quarters of a million pupils a year. Many secondary schools set it at the start of Year 7, and independent schools often use it in admissions; our guide to the CAT4 test covers the format and the day itself.

It has four batteries, each scored separately:

• Verbal reasoning: thinking with words.
• Non-verbal reasoning: solving problems with shapes and patterns.
• Quantitative reasoning: working with numbers and number patterns.
• Spatial ability: picturing and manipulating shapes in three dimensions.

For ages 8 and up the test is three sittings of 45 minutes. GL standardised it on 25,000 students and checks the norms each year against about a quarter of a million.

The three numbers on a CAT4 report

Standard age score (SAS)

The SAS compares a child with others born in the same month, so a summer-born Year 7 is not penalised for being younger. It is set on a scale where 100 is the average and the standard deviation is 15. Scores run from 69 to 141. Teachers generally treat 89 to 111 as average, 112 and above as above average and 88 and below as below average. Each battery has its own SAS and the report gives a mean SAS across all four.

Stanine

A stanine ("standard nine") groups the SAS into nine bands. Stanine 5 is the middle; stanines 4 to 6 are average, 1 to 3 below and 7 to 9 above. Because the bands are narrower in the middle, the same number of points matters more at the extremes.

National percentile rank (NPR)

The NPR says what percentage of children of the same age scored the same or lower. An NPR of 70 means your child did as well as or better than 70% of the national sample. It is measured against a UK sample, which matters if your child is at an international school.

CAT4 scores at a glance

The percentiles are approximate, worked from the standard scale; your child's report gives the exact NPR. As anchor points, an SAS of 100 sits at the 50th percentile, 115 at about the 84th, 120 at about the 91st and 130 at about the 98th.

What is a good CAT4 score?

Anything from 89 to 111 is average for the child's age, and that covers about half of all children. A score of 112 or more is above average, and 120 or more puts a child in roughly the top tenth. But "good" depends on the purpose:

• For a state secondary school, CAT4 is not a pass or fail test. It is used to set groups, targets and support, and no score stops a child taking any subject.
• For selective independent schools, each school sets its own bar, often in the 110s or higher, and usually weighs CAT4 alongside its own papers and an interview. Ask the school directly; there is no national pass mark. If you are comparing with grammar schools, our guide to 11-plus pass marks explains how those are set.

The profile: verbal and spatial bias

A CAT4 report also compares the verbal and spatial scores and describes the child's profile. If the two are close, there is no bias. If verbal is clearly higher, the child has a verbal bias and may learn best through reading, writing and discussion; if spatial is higher, a spatial bias, and diagrams, models and visual explanations may suit them better. The report grades the difference as mild, moderate or extreme.

A low verbal score next to strong non-verbal and spatial scores can point to a child who is still learning English or has difficulty with reading, such as dyslexia. It is a prompt to look further, not a diagnosis; our guide to dyslexia support at school covers what to ask for next.

What schools do with the results

Schools use CAT4 to see a child's potential separately from what they have learned so far. Typical uses are setting maths and English groups, spotting children whose classwork is below what their reasoning scores suggest, identifying stretch for very able pupils, and producing "indicators" that estimate likely GCSE, A level or Key Stage 2 outcomes. Indicators are statistical estimates for children with a similar profile, not predictions or ceilings.

If the school shares the report, the most useful questions are which battery is your child's strongest and weakest, whether the classwork matches the scores, and what the school will do differently because of them.

Can you prepare for CAT4?

GL Assessment says it strongly advises against any practice before a CAT4 test and does not endorse practice materials. The point is to measure reasoning as it is, so a coached score helps neither the child nor the school. Each section starts with untimed practice questions so children know the format before the timed part begins. The best preparation is a good night's sleep and a calm morning.

Sources: GL Assessment, CAT4; Tes, CAT4 tests: what teachers need to know (August 2025). Stanine bands and approximate percentiles calculated from the standard scale (mean 100, standard deviation 15). Checked 11 November 2026.

More guides for parents on the Schools Insight homepage.