What Is the CCAT? Ontario Gifted Screening, With 15 Sample Questions

The other CCAT, and why the search results are confusing

Search "CCAT test" from a Canadian address today and most of page one is about the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test. That is a pre-employment test from a company called Criteria Corp. It has 50 questions, a 15-minute limit, and it is used by employers to screen job candidates.

The test your child's school is talking about is the Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test, published by Nelson for Grades K to 12. Different publisher, different age group, different purpose, no shared questions.

The confusion is not only a search problem. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board's own gifted program document calls the school test the "Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT-7)" in one section, which is the employment test's name. If a school board's own paperwork blends the two, a parent reading Google results has no chance.

One practical consequence: ignore any practice material written for a 15-minute, 50-question timed hiring test. It has nothing to do with what your child will sit.

What the CCAT actually measures

Nelson describes the CCAT as a group assessment that shows "general levels of students' cognitive abilities in three areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal". Nelson says it was developed through trials with over 50,000 Canadian students and normed on over 40,000 Canadian students in Grades K to 12.

The word doing the work there is reasoning. The test is built around problems a child has not seen before, on purpose. It is not checking whether they have learned the Grade 3 curriculum. It is checking how they handle an unfamiliar pattern.

It is not an IQ test. Boards treat it as a screener, one step below an individual assessment. It is also not an admissions test: the SSAT, which private schools in Canada use, is scored on percentiles too but is sat by families applying to a school rather than by a whole grade. Where a board wants a full cognitive profile, it asks for a WISC-V or a Stanford-Binet, administered one-to-one by a registered psychologist. The CCAT is given by a teacher to a room of children, and the result opens a door rather than settling anything.

What is on the test

The CCAT has three batteries, and each battery has three subtests. The names below are the ones Riverside Insights uses for Grade 3 and up in CogAT Form 7, the US test that board and publisher documents tie the current CCAT-7 to. We could not find a CCAT-7 subtest list on a Nelson page.

Older guides and practice packs often list different names, such as Quantitative Relations, Equation Building and Figure Analysis. Those come from Nelson's brochure for Form K, an earlier edition of the CCAT.

In CogAT Form 7, Kindergarten to Grade 2 is entirely picture-based. Picture Analogies and Picture Classification take the place of the two word subtests, Sentence Completion is read aloud, and the other six subtests keep their names. Nelson's brochure for Form K says younger children work straight in a consumable test booklet, and that from Grade 3 up students read the questions in the test booklet and mark a separate answer sheet.

The nonverbal battery is the part parents ask about most. It is deliberately language-free, which is why boards value it for children who are still learning English at home or at school.

Nelson publishes the test in different forms matched to grade bands, which it calls levels. The naming of those levels differs between Nelson's own order materials and the test-prep sites that sell practice packs, so we are not publishing a grade-to-level chart here. Your child's school knows which form they will sit, and you do not need the level name for anything.

Timing. Nelson states the CCAT needs 90 minutes over three sessions. In practice boards split it differently. One Halton school describes its Grade 4 sitting as three ten-minute sections spread over three days.

Which Ontario boards use it, and when

This is where general advice fails, because boards do not run the same process. Some test every child in a grade automatically. Others test only children who are nominated. The grade differs too.

Two things follow from that table. If you are at the public Toronto board or in York Region, your Grade 3 child will sit the CCAT whether or not you do anything, and the same holds at Waterloo Catholic and Hamilton-Wentworth a year later. If you are in Durham or Ottawa-Carleton, nobody will test your child unless someone puts their name forward, and in Durham the nomination form goes out in early September. For a child put forward in Grade 5, our Grade 5 CCAT practice test has 18 original questions in that grade's format.

Two large boards that do not use the CCAT at all

This is the part most likely to catch a parent out, because both boards have the word Toronto or a Toronto-area address on them.

The Toronto Catholic District School Board does not use the CCAT. Its own identification document says a different test: "The OLSAT8 group screening test is administered to all grade 4 students as well as to students that are nominated in higher grades who have not previously completed the OLSAT8 test." That is the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, published by Pearson, and it runs in Grade 4 rather than Grade 3. The word CCAT does not appear in the document. So when this article says Toronto, it means the public board only.

Peel District School Board now screens with a different test too. Peel's own Grade 4 section says: "In a student's Grade 4 year, they may complete a Naglieri General Abilities Test (NGAT) as an initial screener for giftedness." The CCAT appears on the same page only in a footnote about the 2022-2023 school year, when some students were identified on CCAT results alone because of the pandemic. If your child is in Peel, the test to read about is the NGAT.

The six boards in the table are the ones whose own pages we could read and quote. Several other Ontario boards run gifted screening and we could not confirm their process from a board-published page, so they are not here.

What the scores mean

Nelson reports CCAT results as percentile ranks and stanines by age, per battery, rather than as a single overall number. A percentile rank of 98 means the child scored at or above 98 percent of children their age in the norm group. It is a different measure from the levels on an Ontario report card, which describe work against the curriculum rather than against other children.

What matters for a parent is the cutoff the board applies, and it is not the same everywhere.

• Ottawa-Carleton wants the 98th percentile on two of the three scales, plus at least the 90th on the third.
• Waterloo Catholic wants the 98th percentile in two or more batteries.
• Durham uses the 95th to 97th percentile band as the trigger for an individual follow-up assessment, which is a lower bar than the others and a different thing from identification.
• York Region does not publish a CCAT cutoff. The 98th percentile mark it does publish applies to the General Ability Index from the individual assessment at stage two.
• Hamilton-Wentworth sends strong scorers to a WISC-V, but says some students qualify on CCAT results alone, "when both verbal and non-verbal scores are at the 98th percentile".

So a score that moves a child forward in Durham may not move them forward in Ottawa. There is no single Ontario number, and anyone who gives you one has not checked.

One warning about reading these pages yourself. Waterloo Catholic's page says both that students at the 98th percentile in two batteries "are identified as 'gifted'" and, further down, that they "will be recommended for further assessment". Those are two different outcomes on one page. Ask the school which one applies.

Can your child prepare for it? What the boards say

This is the part most test-prep pages skip, so here it is plainly.

The Toronto District School Board's position is the strongest and it is worth quoting in full: "The CCAT-7 and other measures of intellectual ability are designed to provide students with exposure to novel tasks. As such, no advance preparation or practice is permitted. Any evidence of prior exposure, preparation, or practice will render the results invalid and may compromise the integrity of the screening process."

That is unambiguous. In the TDSB, drilling your child on CCAT questions can invalidate the result you were hoping to improve.

Not every board says it that sharply. A Halton school's page tells families there is no preparation to be done "outside of ensuring their child has a good nights rest and a breakfast". Durham approaches the same worry from another direction, requiring a nine-month gap before a private practitioner repeats a test the board has already given, "to minimize practice effects and to ensure validity of results". York Region and Ottawa-Carleton do not state a position on preparation on the pages we read.

The common thread is that boards treat prior exposure as a threat to the result rather than an advantage.

So why publish sample questions at all? Because there is a difference between coaching a child and showing a parent what the test looks like. The questions below exist so you can recognise the formats, understand what the report you receive is measuring, and decide whether the whole process is worth your attention. They are not a study plan. If your board is TDSB, do not work through them with your child.

15 sample questions in the real formats

One line from the section above, repeated here because you may have jumped straight to this one. If your board is the public Toronto board, do not work through these questions with your child. Its rule still applies.

Every question below is original and was written for this article. None is reprinted from a CCAT test paper, a Nelson practice booklet or any published item bank. Those are copyrighted, and copying them would also break the rule the boards are trying to protect.

The real nonverbal questions are pictures. Ours describe the pictures in words, which is a compromise worth knowing about before you read them.

The answer key, with the working for each question, comes after the last question.

Verbal

Question 1. Which of these belongs with robin, sparrow and heron?

• A. bat
• B. moth
• C. pelican
• D. squirrel
• E. dragonfly

Question 2. Which of these belongs with violin, cello and guitar?

• A. drum
• B. flute
• C. harp
• D. trumpet
• E. clarinet

Question 3. The storm was so ______ that the ferry stayed in the harbour all afternoon.

• A. distant
• B. brief
• C. fierce
• D. quiet
• E. late

Question 4. Seed is to plant as egg is to ______.

• A. nest
• B. bird
• C. shell
• D. feather
• E. wing

Question 5. Thermometer is to temperature as scale is to ______.

• A. kitchen
• B. weight
• C. metal
• D. number
• E. balance

Quantitative

Question 6. The same rule changes each number. 4 → 1. 9 → 6. 12 → ?

• A. 4
• B. 8
• C. 9
• D. 15
• E. 36

Question 7. What comes next? 4, 9, 14, 19, ______

• A. 21
• B. 23
• C. 24
• D. 25
• E. 29

Question 8. What comes next? 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, ______

• A. 12
• B. 13
• C. 14
• D. 15
• E. 16

Question 9. 15 − ? = 2 × 4. Which number makes both sides equal?

• A. 6
• B. 7
• C. 8
• D. 11
• E. 23

Question 10. The same rule changes each number. 20 → 10. 14 → 7. 18 → ?

• A. 8
• B. 9
• C. 11
• D. 12
• E. 36

Nonverbal

Question 11. Three figures: a square cut into four equal parts with one part shaded, a circle cut into four equal parts with one part shaded, and a triangle cut into four equal parts with one part shaded. Which figure belongs with them?

• A. a hexagon in six equal parts with one shaded
• B. a rectangle in four equal parts with one shaded
• C. a square in four equal parts with two shaded
• D. a circle in three equal parts with one shaded
• E. a pentagon in five equal parts with two shaded

Question 12. A grid has two rows of two boxes. The top row shows a large square with a small circle inside it, then a large circle with a small square inside it. The bottom row shows a large triangle with a small star inside it, then an empty box. Which picture goes in the empty box?

• A. a large triangle with a small star inside it
• B. a large star with a small triangle inside it
• C. a large star with a small circle inside it
• D. a large circle with a small triangle inside it
• E. a large star with a small star inside it

Question 13. A square sheet of paper is folded in half so the top edge meets the bottom edge. One hole is punched through both layers, near the left edge of the folded sheet. When the paper is unfolded, what do you see?

• A. one hole in the centre
• B. two holes side by side near the left edge
• C. two holes one above the other near the left edge
• D. two holes in opposite corners
• E. four holes

Question 14. Three figures: a triangle, a pentagon and a heptagon. Which figure belongs with them?

• A. a square
• B. a hexagon
• C. a nonagon
• D. an octagon
• E. a circle

Question 15. A grid has two rows of two boxes. The top row shows a large white triangle, then a small black triangle. The bottom row shows a large white hexagon, then an empty box. Which picture goes in the empty box?

• A. a large black hexagon
• B. a small white hexagon
• C. a small black hexagon
• D. a small black triangle
• E. a large white hexagon

Answer key, with the working

The working

Question 1. The first three are all birds. A bat, a moth and a dragonfly fly, but only the pelican is a bird, and the trap is that flying looks like the rule.

Question 2. All three are string instruments, and the harp is the only string instrument among the choices.

Question 3. Only fierce explains why the ferry stayed put.

Question 4. A seed becomes a plant and an egg becomes a bird. The other choices are things found near an egg rather than what it turns into.

Question 5. A thermometer measures temperature and a scale measures weight.

Question 6. Each number goes down by 3: 4 becomes 1 and 9 becomes 6, so 12 becomes 9. Adding 3 or multiplying by 3 does not fit either pair.

Question 7. The pattern adds 5 each time, so 19 plus 5 is 24.

Question 8. The gaps grow by one each time, adding 1, then 2, then 3, then 4. The next gap is 5, and 11 plus 5 is 16.

Question 9. Two times four is 8, so the left side has to make 8 as well, and 15 minus 7 is 8. Option C, 8, is the trap: it is what each side comes to.

Question 10. Each number is halved: 20 becomes 10 and 14 becomes 7, so 18 becomes 9. Taking away 7 works for the second pair only, which is how a child lands on the trap answer, 11.

Question 11. All three examples are cut into four equal parts with one part shaded, so the rule is a quarter shaded. Option C is the trap, because it also has four parts but shades two of them, which makes a half. The hexagon shows a sixth, the three-part circle a third, and the pentagon two fifths.

Question 12. Across each row, the outside shape and the inside shape swap places, so a triangle with a star inside becomes a star with a triangle inside. Reading down the columns gives the same answer: the square becomes a triangle and the circle becomes a star.

Question 13. The fold is horizontal, so the second hole appears directly above or below the first, mirrored across the fold line.

Question 14. Each figure has an odd number of sides: three, five and seven. A nonagon has nine.

Question 15. Across the top row, the triangle stays a triangle but gets smaller and turns black. Make both changes to the hexagon and you get a small black hexagon. Options A and B each make only one of the two changes.

What happens if your child screens in

A high CCAT score is the start of a process, not the end of one.

In York Region, a qualifying stage one result leads to an individual assessment with a registered psychologist. The board's public summary page calls this a two-stage process, while its own written procedure PRO-358 counts the committee meeting as a third stage. Same process, two ways of counting it. If that assessment puts the child at or above the 98th percentile on the General Ability Index, the case goes to an IPRC.

An IPRC is an Identification, Placement and Review Committee. It is the formal Ontario meeting that decides whether a child is identified with an exceptionality, giftedness included, and where they will be placed. The same committee sits behind an Ontario IEP, and what accommodated and modified actually mean. Ottawa-Carleton and Durham both route their gifted decisions through the same committee.

Placement is usually a choice between two things. The child stays in the regular class with accommodations from the classroom teacher, or the child moves into a self-contained class with other identified students. Ottawa-Carleton runs congregated gifted classes for Grades 4 to 8 in both English and French Immersion, and a secondary gifted program at named schools.

If your child missed the screening, there is usually still a route. York Region screens students who arrive after Grade 3 through an in-school team referral, and also accepts a full psychological assessment arranged privately. Durham lets a parent or a teacher request a nomination form for any grade from 4 to 12 in early September. Our Grade 6 CCAT practice test covers the routes still open in Grade 6, with 18 original questions at a Grade 6 level.

None of the board pages we read describes a way for a parent to opt a child out of universal screening. If that matters to you, ask the school.