Most people who message me about the CCAT ask the same thing the day after the test: “I got 29, is that good?” It depends on the job, but the numbers behind the answer are simple once they’re laid out in one place. Below are the average, a chart that converts any raw score into a percentile, the target I’d use for each type of role, and what 189 timed practice attempts show about where people lose their points.
The short answer: the average CCAT score is about 24 out of 50, which is the 50th percentile. A score of 31 puts you around the top 20%. Anything from 35 up is strong for most professional roles, and 40 or more puts you in roughly the top 3% of everyone who takes it.
On this page
What counts as a good CCAT score
A good CCAT score is one that clears the cutoff for the job you applied to. Criteria Corp, the company behind the CCAT, doesn’t publish a pass mark. Each employer sets its own minimum, usually from Criteria’s suggested range for that job family, and candidates below it rarely reach an interview.
So it’s more useful to think in bands than in pass or fail:
- Below 20: below average. Enough for some entry-level roles, risky for most office jobs.
- 21 to 27: around average. Clears many customer service, sales and admin cutoffs.
- 28 to 34: above average. Competitive for analyst, operations and most programming roles.
- 35 to 39: strong. Competitive for product, strategy, senior and management roles.
- 40 and above: elite. The top few percent of all test takers.
The CCAT is scored on correct answers only. There’s no penalty for a wrong answer, so a blank and a wrong guess are worth exactly the same: zero. Keep that in mind, because it matters a lot later.
CCAT percentile chart: raw score to percentile
Employers usually see two numbers: your raw score (correct answers out of 50) and your percentile, which ranks you against Criteria’s norm group. The chart below converts one into the other using the published norm figures, an average of about 24.2 and a standard deviation of about 8.6. Read each percentile as accurate to within a point or two, since Criteria’s own reports round and its comparison groups can vary by job level.
| Raw score | Percentile | Roughly means |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 9th | Bottom 10% |
| 15 | 16th | Well below average |
| 18 | 25th | Bottom quarter |
| 20 | 33rd | Below average |
| 22 | 42nd | Just below average |
| 24 | 51st | Average |
| 27 | 65th | Above average |
| 30 | 77th | Top quarter |
| 31 | 80th | Top 20% |
| 33 | 86th | Top 15% |
| 35 | 91st | Top 10% |
| 37 | 94th | Top 6% |
| 38 | 95th | Top 5% |
| 40 | 97th | Top 3% |
| 42 | 98th | Top 2% |
| 44 or more | 99th | Top 1% |
Two things stand out. The middle of the chart is steep: going from 24 to 30 moves you from the 51st to the 77th percentile, so six more correct answers jump you past a quarter of the field. The top is flat: from 40 to 44 you gain about two percentile points. If you’re sitting near average, a handful of extra correct answers changes how you look on paper more than anything else you could do.
If you want the scoring mechanics in more depth, including how Criteria builds its percentiles, the CCAT scoring guide on ccattests.com goes through it step by step.
What CCAT score you need by role
Prep providers that track employer cutoffs report ranges like the ones below. The right-hand column is what I’d aim for in practice, a few points above the typical range, because practice at home is always a little easier than the real sitting.
| Role | Typical range | Aim for |
|---|---|---|
| Customer service | 18 to 32 | 28+ |
| Sales | 21 to 35 | 30+ |
| Operations, project manager | 22 to 40 | 31+ |
| Software engineer, programmer | 22 to 40, often about 31 | 33+ |
| Accounting | 24 to 39 | 32+ |
| Analyst | 23 to 42 | 34+ |
| Product, strategy | around 35 | 36+ |
| Senior manager, director, VP, lawyer | 29 to 42, director about 37 | 38+ |
The software, product and director figures come from PrepClubs’ breakdown of CCAT cutoffs by role. One caveat: the same job title can carry a very different cutoff at two companies, so treat the ranges as a guide and the “aim for” number as your practice target. A strong score never guarantees an offer either; it gets you to the next round.
What 189 timed practice attempts show
The norm chart tells you where you stand. It doesn’t tell you why people land where they do. For that I use PrepClubs’ research reports, which analyse anonymised timed practice attempts on CCAT-style forms with the real format: 50 questions, 15 minutes. These are practice scores, not official results, and the people in them are preparing, so treat them as a picture of how the test behaves rather than as a second norm table.
The typical practice score is 27 out of 50. Across 189 CCAT attempts, the median scored 54%. The middle half landed between 44% and 68% (22 to 34 out of 50), and the top 10% scored 82% or more, which is 41 and up. Source: Practice score benchmarks (Report 2026-04).
One in five questions never gets answered. Of all CCAT items in those attempts, 20.6% were left blank, and in the final fifth of the paper that rose to 60.6%. People answer the opening almost completely and then simply run out of time. Those blanks cost an average of 2.1 marks per attempt, marks that a guess would have recovered some of for free. Source: Unanswered questions on timed tests (Report 2026-01).
The paper gets harder as you go. Accuracy falls from 81.7% on the first ten questions to 45.3% on the last ten, a drop of 36 points. Partly that’s harder items, partly it’s rushing. Source: The test difficulty ramp (Report 2026-03).
Lingering is the real cost, not speed. The CCAT allows 18 seconds a question. When the same question is answered fast or slow, accuracy differs by only about 3 points (72.5% against 69.4%). Meanwhile the median attempt on a speeded test spends 102 seconds beyond a 30-second-per-question cap, time that would have covered about 7 more questions. Source: Time per question (Report 2026-02).
Put those together and you get the most useful sentence on this page: on a speeded test like the CCAT, your raw score tracks how many questions you reach (a correlation of 0.72) more closely than how accurate you are on the ones you answer (0.56). Getting further through the paper is usually the cheapest way to add points.
How employers read your score
Most hiring teams treat the CCAT as a gate rather than a ranking. If you clear their minimum, the score mostly stops mattering and the interview takes over. If you’re far above it, it can help you stand out in a big applicant pool, but nobody gets hired on a CCAT score alone.
A few practical points:
- The percentile is often what they look at, because it means the same thing to a recruiter whatever the role. “92nd percentile” reads faster than “36 out of 50”.
- Cutoffs are set per role, so the same score can pass one application and fail another at the same company.
- Retakes depend on the employer. Some allow one after a waiting period, many don’t for the same application. Ask the recruiter rather than assuming.
- You may be asked to sit it again later, sometimes proctored, to confirm an unproctored result. A score you earned honestly holds up; one you didn’t usually doesn’t.
How to raise your CCAT score
I sat the real CCAT three times to get through Crossover’s hiring process and scored 40 or more every time, with a best of 48 out of 50, the 99th percentile. I reached all 50 questions on every attempt. The honest part is the preparation: before my first sitting I did about four to five full online practice tests. Not weeks of study, not dozens of mocks. A small number of complete, timed runs under real conditions did most of the work, and that’s what I’d tell anyone to copy.
Here’s the routine I’d follow if I had a week:
- Take one full test cold. 50 questions, 15 minutes, no pausing. Use the chart above to turn your score into a percentile, and that’s your baseline.
- Find where your time goes. Note which question types you were slow on: verbal, maths and logic, or spatial. Most people have one type that eats a minute or more.
- Set two pace checkpoints. 18 seconds a question means roughly question 17 by the 5-minute mark and question 34 by 10 minutes. Behind at a checkpoint? Skip harder items until you’re back on pace.
- Cap every question at about 30 seconds. If you’re not close by then, pick your best guess, flag it mentally and move on. The research above shows lingering costs far more than it saves.
- Never leave a blank. In the last 20 to 30 seconds, answer everything you haven’t reached. With five options, every random guess has a one in five chance of a free point.
- Repeat with a full test every day or two, reading the explanations for everything you got wrong or guessed. Four or five full runs is a realistic target.
For the full-length runs, I point people to the CCAT practice tests on PrepClubs. It has 14 full-length mocks and 12 topic drills on the real 50-question, 15-minute timer, a 7-lesson course on the fastest way to answer each question type, and explanations that show the quick route rather than the textbook one. If you’d rather start with individual question types first, my CCAT sample questions guide walks through each one.
CCAT score FAQ
What is the average CCAT score?
About 24 out of 50, which is the 50th percentile on Criteria’s norms. In timed practice the median is a little higher, around 27, because people practising are already preparing.
Is 30 a good CCAT score?
Yes. A 30 is around the 77th percentile, better than roughly three in four test takers. It clears most customer service, sales and operations cutoffs and is borderline for analyst and senior roles.
Is 35 a good CCAT score?
Yes, it’s a strong score. 35 sits around the 91st percentile and is competitive for almost every role, including product and strategy.
Can you get a perfect 50 on the CCAT?
It’s possible but very rare, because the test is built so that almost nobody finishes. My best was 48 out of 50. Aim to reach every question and get the early ones right rather than chasing perfection.
Does the CCAT penalise wrong answers?
No. Only correct answers count, so a wrong guess costs nothing. Always answer every question before time runs out.
Is the CCAT an IQ test?
Not exactly. It measures abilities that overlap with IQ, like problem solving, learning speed and critical thinking, but it’s scored against job applicants, not on an IQ scale, and employers use it to predict job performance. Converting a CCAT score into an IQ number isn’t something Criteria supports.
How long is a CCAT score valid?
It’s up to the employer. Most use your result for that application only, and some ask for a proctored retest before an offer. Don’t assume a score from one company carries to another.
Where this comes from
I sat the CCAT three times to get through Crossover’s hiring process, scoring 40 or more each time with a best of 48 out of 50 at the 99th percentile, after about four to five practice tests before the first sitting. Since then more than 100 people have asked me on LinkedIn what score they need and how to get there, and this page is my long answer. The percentile chart uses Criteria’s published norm figures, and every practice-data number links to the PrepClubs research report it came from, so you can check each one yourself.