Choosing an EQ test

The checklist

Four questions sort the field better than any ranking could, because they are checkable from the outside. Is the method published? A test that shows how it is scored can be audited; one that shows only a number cannot. Are margins stated? Every score carries error, and whether the margin is printed beside the figure is checkable in ten seconds. Who is the norm sample? Any comparison inherits the group behind it, and "compared with an unnamed sample" is not a comparison. Are self-report and performance kept apart? The two barely correlate, so a test that fuses them into one figure is averaging things that disagree.

We built this site to pass its own checklist: the method is public, margins of about 9 points per facet and 8 on the total are printed on the report, the norm sample is described honestly, including the 1,000-sitting threshold it has not reached yet, and the two tracks are never fused. Judge us by the same four questions you would put to anyone.

The practical questions

• Free EQ tests, and what free buys: free is rarely the whole sentence. The useful question is which part is free, and what funds the rest.
• What EQ test questions look like: two formats do almost all the work in this field. Here is each, with an invented example, and what each can and cannot measure.
• How long an EQ test should take: length is not padding. Every item you answer narrows the margin around your score, and short tests pay for their speed somewhere.
• Online EQ tests, unsupervised: nobody watched you sit it. That single fact sets the honest limits of every consumer test, including this one.

After the sitting

• Retaking an EQ test: retake too soon and you measure your memory of the questions. The interesting retake is the one that waits.
• What an EQ certificate can say: a certificate is a record, not a credential, and the difference is worth knowing before you frame one.

If you already have a score

From any test at all: the score-interpretation pages translate it, scale by scale, and the concepts pages map the territory the scores are about. Our own test is free to take, and the free result is the classification and the shape of your profile.