Each year, about 2.5 million job applicants, in every line of work, take the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) (Merron, 2002, p. 1). The WPT is a widely-accepted test of an individual's general intelligence (Psychometrics Canada, 2005, p.1), otherwise known as an IQ test. Human resources (HR) executives often use this test to determine a candidate's overall mental capabilities as a means of selecting or promoting such individuals in business and vocational positions. Generally, the WPT measures a person's ability to learn, adapt, solve problems, and understand instructions (Psychometrics Canada, 2005, p.1). People who use the test for selection and placement purposes believe it is an accurate predictor of job performance in both routine and complex employment positions (Psychometrics Canada, 2005, p.1). Such human resources executives also maintain that the test allows them to reduce personnel selection errors and turnover and training time (Psychometrics Canada, 2005, p.1). The Wonderlic Corporation maintains that more than 50,000 organizations around the world have used the WPT since 1937 to evaluate the cognitive abilities of more than 130 million people (Creative Organizational Design, 2005, p. 1).
The WPT can generally be completed in twelve minutes and consists of fifty (50) verbal, numerical, analytical and spatial relations questions (Psychometrics Canada, 2005, p.1). These questions increase in difficulty and must be completed within 12 minutes without the aid of a calculator or other problem-solving device (Canada Revenue Agency, 2004, p. 1). The questions include word comparisons, disarranged sentences, sentence parallelism, following directions, number comparisons, number series, analysis of geometric figures, and story problems requiring either mathematics or logic solutions (Canada Revenue Agency, 2004, p. 1). Sample questions on the WPT are as follows. One question asks the candidate to predict what number comes next in ...