What’s on the CCAT-7
The Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test, Seventh Edition, is the group test most Ontario boards use to begin gifted screening in Grade 3 or Grade 4. Here is what it covers, from the publisher’s and the boards’ own material. Last updated 27 September 2026.
What it is
- Published by Nelson Education. It is the Canadian edition of the CogAT (Form 7), the test many US districts use — so the CCAT-7 and the CogAT ask the same kinds of question.
- A test of reasoning, not of schoolwork. TDSB describes it as a screener that “measures potential for learning” and “does not test the Ontario Curriculum”.
- Not the “CCAT” job test. The Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test is an unrelated 15-minute test for adult job applicants, and much of what comes up when you search “CCAT” is about that one.
Three batteries, nine kinds of question
- Verbal — “thinking with words”
- Verbal analogies, sentence completion and verbal classification.
- Quantitative — “thinking with numbers”
- Number analogies, number series and number puzzles.
- Non-verbal — “thinking without words or numbers”
- Figure matrices, figure classification and paper folding.
The quoted descriptions are TDSB’s, from the deck it presents to parents.
Grade 3, Grade 4: which level
- Level 9 — Grade 3
- TDSB and York Region screen here.
- Level 10 — Grade 4
- Peel and York Catholic screen here, and Halton gives the CCAT-7 in Grade 4 too.
- Level 11 — Grade 5
- The next level up.
The kinds of question stay the same from level to level; what changes is how hard they are. Which grade does your board screen?
How long it takes
- About 90 minutes in all: roughly 30 minutes for each of the three batteries.
- In the CogAT it is built from, each subtest runs about 10 minutes for about 20 questions — around 30 seconds a question. Working steadily matters as much as working things out.
- Given in class, in a group, by the classroom teacher. TDSB describes it as an online test.
How it is scored
- Scored by an outside company, against children of the same age and grade. It does not appear on the report card.
- At TDSB, a copy goes into your child’s Ontario Student Record.
- Boards do not publish the score that moves a child to the next stage. At TDSB, identification itself rests on a later individual assessment (the WISC-V), not on the CCAT-7.
Can you prepare?
TDSB asks families not to practise the test itself, and says evidence of preparation can invalidate a result. It does suggest building reasoning at home: word games, number games, puzzles, and asking your child to explain how they got an answer. We set out exactly what the policy says in does TDSB allow test prep?
That explaining is what Cub Climb is built around. Its puzzles are original — none is a copy or a close imitation of a real CCAT-7 question — and after each answer your child names the rule behind it. See the nine puzzle types.
Sources
- Nelson Education, CCAT-7 flyer (PDF) — pages.nelson.com
- Nelson Education, CCAT-7 product page — school.nelson.com
- TDSB Ward 13, Universal Screening and Gifted Programming, Ward Forum deck (PDF) — jamesli.net
- TDSB, Universal Screening (public parent page) — tdsb.on.ca
- TDSB, CCAT-7 Parent Letter, Virtual School Students (PDF) — tdsb.on.ca
- Riverside Insights, CogAT testing time and number of items per subtest — info.riversideinsights.com
- Peel DSB, The Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test 7 (PPTX) — peelschools.org
- YRDSB, Gifted Screening Procedure — www2.yrdsb.ca
CCAT-7 is a trademark of Nelson Education and CogAT of Riverside Insights. Cub Climb is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to either, or to any school board. This page is general information, not advice.