April 8, 2025

Aptitude tests Wiki

The Aptitude Test is a yearly assessment taken by every 16 year old.

Choosing

The next day at the Choosing Ceremony, test-takers must choose which faction they will enter into. They can either leave their family and choose an entirely new faction or they can stay with them. Their Aptitude Test result is usually taken into account by the takers, but the final decision is left up to them.

Test

The tests are administered every year to children reaching the age of sixteen which is considered adulthood in . The test cannot be administered by a member of the teenager's own faction, so the volunteer test evaluators usually consist of eight Abnegation, who test the non-Abnegation teenagers, with two evaluators from the other four factions to test the two Abnegation-born ones, since ten tests are taken simultaneously. One non-Abnegation test evaluator is Tori, who is Dauntless and performs Tris' test.

before the test

Rooms

The rooms where the tests are taken, used specifically only for the administration of the aptitude tests, have mirrored walls and are very bright-lit. In the center of the room is a chair that looks like a dentist's chair. Test-takers are instructed to sit there and electrodes are attached to their head. Then they are given a serum to drink, to connect them to a simulation program. This simulation helps decide what faction they should choose. Some test results are inconclusive, like Beatrice Prior, resulting in Divergence.

Simulation

In the simulation, Jeanine's voice is used, as she is the designer of the serum. When asked to choose between the knife and the cheese, the Dauntless choose the knife, while the Amity choose the cheese.

Beatrice

In Beatrice Prior's case she refuses to choose either and submits to the dog that occurs, an Erudite response, and when a child appears and the dog runs at her, Beatrice throws herself at the dog - a Dauntless and Abnegation response. Another simulation scenario includes one on a bus where a burnt (scarred) man reading a newspaper asks you if you know the man feature on the front page, the one responsible for his problem.

Taker

The taker is meant to feel like he/she knows the culprit but will also have a horrible feeling that if you say you do, something bad will happen. The Candor always tell the truth. When you insist upon lying, this elaborates and the man will further persuade you, saying that it will help him, showing the taker his true face.

Abnegation

The way the simulations work is that in the given scenarios, each stage should eliminate at least one or more of the factions, ultimately eliminating at least four factions and leaving out one as the result. The result is entered into a system which is only accessible by a select few people. The teenagers are not supposed to discuss their test results, at least until after the choosing ceremony the following day. However, it is expected that they take the results into account when choosing their faction but this is not enforced as they can still choose any faction, regardless of their test result.

Whilst most teens are not told what exactly the test involves beforehand, it is possible to purposefully get a specific result, regardless of which faction one might naturally fit into. An example is Tobias, who was coached by his father to give certain responses in the test in order to get an Abnegation result, it is unknown what result Tobias would have recieved if he had not followed this coaching.

If the test in inconclusive, resulting in the elimination of only three or less factions, the taker is either a Divergent or knows what to do in order to appear as one. In Tris' case, only two were eliminated, with the other three being inconclusive as well because of her contradicting decisions and her refusal to make a choice in the beginning, ending up with an equal aptitude for Erudite, Abnegation and Dauntless, which was officially entered into the system as Abnegation for her safety. This is said to be a very rare number, even for a Divergent. Most Divergent have three of the five factions eliminated during their aptitude test, and only have aptitude for two factions.