Matrigma is Assessio's nonverbal matrix test of general mental ability. See its adaptive 12-minute format, 0-10 C-score, and how it compares to an IQ test.
Dr. Russell T. WarneChief Scientist
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Matrigma is a nonverbal test of general mental ability from the Swedish publisher Assessio, built entirely from logical matrices: grids of figures with one element missing, in the same tradition as Raven's Progressive Matrices. The current adaptive version allows one minute per item and 12 minutes total, and reports a single 0-10 "C-score" against a working-population norm group. Because it uses no words or numbers, Assessio positions it as fairer to test-takers with dyslexia or dyscalculia and usable across languages. This article explains the format, the unusually public evidence behind it, and what a C-score does and does not tell you.
How the Matrigma test works
Every item is a matrix puzzle: study the logic of the grid, then pick the missing element from the options. The adaptive version adjusts item difficulty to your performance as you go, with a hard cap of one minute per item and 12 minutes overall. A classic fixed-form version also exists, five parallel 30-item forms with a 40-minute limit, used where employers prefer identical tests for all candidates. Assessio recommends supervised administration and advises retesting unsupervised results before high-stakes decisions. The test is delivered in at least 14 languages, which is the point of going nonverbal: the same matrices work in Stockholm and Vilnius.
The evidence, from a public technical manual
Matrigma stands out in the employment-testing market for publishing its technical manual. The 2017 edition, by Hunter Mabon and Anders Sjöberg, reports internal consistency of .84 to .87, test-retest correlations of .66 to .68 over one to two months, and a meta-analysis across 4,490 employees finding an observed correlation of .25 with job performance, .36 after standard corrections. The 2015 norm group held 46,297 test-takers across more than a dozen language versions. The manual also validates Matrigma against Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices and the WAIS matrices, placing it firmly in the g-measurement tradition. Assessio itself has history here: founded by the Swedish Psychological Association in 1954, it also distributes Raven's matrices in the Nordics, and Matrigma's norm data traces back to selection testing from 2009 and 2010.
What a C-score means, and what it is not
Matrigma reports a 0-10 C-score with a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of about 2, so a 7 is roughly a standard deviation above the working-population average and a 9 or 10 is rare. That is a genuine measure of general mental ability, but it is not an IQ score: the norm group is occupational rather than nationally representative, the scale is coarser, and a 12-minute adaptive screen samples far fewer behaviors than a full battery. Matrigma tells an employer, quickly and fairly, how strong your abstract reasoning is; broader tools like a full cognitive test answer more. The Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test from RIOT IQ measures six abilities, fluid reasoning among them, with transparent norms; you can take a free IQ test and see the difference a profile makes.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the Matrigma test?
The adaptive version allows one minute per item and 12 minutes total. The classic fixed-form version has a 40-minute maximum.
What is a good Matrigma score?
Scores run 0 to 10 with 5 as average and a standard deviation of about 2, so 7 and above is roughly the top sixth of the norm group. Employers set their own cutoffs.
Is Matrigma the same as Raven's Progressive Matrices?
No, but it is built in the same nonverbal matrix tradition and validated against Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices in Assessio's manual.
Does Matrigma predict job performance?
Assessio's meta-analysis across 4,490 employees reports a correlation of .25 with job performance, .36 corrected.
Can you fail Matrigma?
There is no pass or fail in the test itself. It is entirely nonverbal, and each employer decides what score is enough for the role.
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