Straightforward enough in principle, with one quirk in some practice apps that’s worth knowing about.
What the test is
The formatA grid of tiles, each holding either a red letter or a unique symbol, with a small black number in the bottom corner. A target tile is shown at the bottom of the screen with its number replaced by question marks; you find the matching tile in the grid and give the number that belongs to it. It sits with Target Recognition and Table Reading as the rapid visual-scanning family, so practice here pays off three times.
Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides
(rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides
(airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).
SkyWatch Symbols playing itself, our practice
version, not the real test. Play it
Skill area: Perception, memory and attention.
What candidates say
These points come from people who have sat the test, gathered from forums, community
chats and candidates who wrote to us afterwards. Nothing here is quoted or attributed. Each point is
graded by how many separate accounts back it up.
✓ Well established! Single account✕ Outdated? From the published guides
In the real test the symbol to number mapping mostly holds still, but every ten questions or so it adds new symbols and shuffles the numbers attached to them.
Accounts differ, and some people think it changes every time. Safest approach is to use the mapping while it holds, then re-check it whenever new symbols appear, instead of trusting your memory across the whole test.
! Single accountReal test
In some practice apps the mapping never changes within a test, so you can memorise it and skip the actual skill.
If your tool does that, avoid the shortcut on purpose. Scoring well by learning a fixed key is training you for a test that doesn’t exist.
! Single accountPractice warning
Both common versions of visual search show up in the real test, and the number of items you’re scanning keeps growing.
The skill carries into the table reading and vigilance tests as well, so time here isn’t narrowly spent.
! Single accountStructure
Practise it on SkyWatch
Our Symbols game is a visual search grid: find the tile that matches the target and give its number, against the clock.
You can play it without an account, and the skill carries into the table reading and vigilance tests too.
1,500+
practice runs played on SkyWatch
73%
of players who practised 10+ times improved on their first runs
This page is one part of the complete CBAT guide,
which also covers how the day runs, the pass marks and the domain minimums. Or see
every CBAT test on one page.