What the test is
The formatUp to about thirteen pages of information on one broad subject (past topics include rocks, insects and plants, and renewable energy) with only two pages readable at a time. The questions are multiple choice and are deliberately not answered plainly anywhere in the text: you locate the relevant pieces across separate tabs and infer from them. Usually three parts of increasing size, roughly 15–20, 20–25 and 25–30 minutes, with around three minutes of familiarisation up front.
Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides
(rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides
(airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).
Skill area: Logic and reasoning.
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 Single account✕ Outdated?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
No subject knowledge is required. Whatever the topic turns out to be, everything you need is in the tabs.
Worth internalising, because the topic can look intimidating. You’re not being tested on rocks or renewable energy. You’re being tested on whether you can join two pieces of information from different pages.
? From the published guidesWhat it isn’t
The answers aren’t written plainly in the text. You have to join the dots between separate sections.
So don’t keyword-hunt for a phrase from the question. If you find your answer sitting there in one sentence, check it, because that’s usually the distractor rather than the answer.
? From the published guidesMethod
One candidate who sat it describes it plainly: a table of eight tabs of information, three minutes to read them, then the questions start.
The first usable first-hand account of this test I’ve found. Eight tabs is fewer than the published guides imply, so don’t brace for a textbook. Note also that he treated it as a scanning job, reading the question and then going to find the pieces, rather than trying to hold the content in his head.
! Single accountFormat
Roughly three minutes per question, and it moves on by itself when the time is up.
From the same account. The auto-advance is the part worth planning for: on a question you can’t place, you are not choosing between answering and moving on. It will move on regardless, so put something down early and refine it rather than running the clock out with nothing selected.
! Single accountTiming
The published guides say you can skip questions and come back, and you get about three minutes up front to familiarise yourself.
The three minutes up front matches the first-hand account. Skipping and returning doesn’t sit easily with a question timer that advances on its own, so check how the two work together during your reading time. Either way, use the opening three minutes to learn where things are rather than to read for content, the same approach as the System Logic Test.
? From the published guidesTiming
Practise it on SkyWatch
Our Verbal Logic game gives you tabs of text on one subject with only two readable at once, and questions you answer by joining the dots between them.
There is an Easier board to learn the format on.
Practise VLT free
Every SkyWatch game is our own CBAT-style practice version, built from what candidates report. None of them is the real test.