--- title: "Power test" description: "A power test is one that gives nearly every candidate time to attempt every item, so what separates people is the difficulty of the problems they can solve rather than how fast they work. A low score means the person could not do the harder work, not that they ran out of clock." canonical: https://www.assessall.com/guides/glossary/p/power-test updated: 2026-09-09 source: AssessAll --- # Power test _Also known as: Power form, Unspeeded test._ A power test is one that gives nearly every candidate time to attempt every item, so what separates people is the difficulty of the problems they can solve rather than how fast they work. A low score means the person could not do the harder work, not that they ran out of clock. ## Timed is not the same as speeded Almost every test administered in practice has a time limit, and almost none of them are speed tests. A limit exists for scheduling, for invigilation and to cap how long a candidate can search for an answer. A test is a power test when that limit binds on hardly anyone, and it stays a power test even though it is timed. The distinction is not decoration. It decides what a low score is evidence of. On a power form a low score is evidence about capability at the difficulty the items reach. On a speeded form it is evidence about throughput, and the two lead to different hiring decisions about the same person. ## Where a power test is the wrong instrument It is tempting to treat the power form as the fairer of the two and default to it. That is a mistake when the job is genuinely bounded by the clock. A trading desk, a contact-centre queue, a claims-processing role and a triage desk all require correct work at a pace, and a power form deliberately removes the part of the requirement that makes those roles hard. The honest way to choose is to describe the work first. If a wrong answer produced quickly is worse than a right answer produced slowly, use a power form. If the work arrives faster than it can be considered, a speeded form is measuring something the job actually asks for, and using a power form will shortlist people who cannot do it. ## What a power form makes safe Extended time as an accessibility accommodation preserves the meaning of a power score, because pace was never part of what was being measured. On a speeded form the same accommodation changes the construct. This is the clearest practical reason to know which form you bought before an accommodation request arrives rather than after. Ofqual's 2025 review of time limits states the condition that has to hold for that adjustment to be fair, and it is stricter than it sounds: in a test not intended to assess speed of working, everyone not receiving extra time should be able to complete the test in the standard time, and everyone who cannot should receive it. Read as a specification rather than as guidance, that is an instruction to check the completion rate of the standard-time cohort before granting or refusing anything. If a quarter of the untimed-construct cohort is not finishing, the form is speeded whatever the specification says, and the accommodation policy is being applied to the wrong instrument. A power form also makes item-level diagnosis meaningful. If nearly everybody reached the last item, a wrong answer is a wrong method rather than an abandoned question, and the review can name which method failed. On a speeded form the final items are contaminated by guessing and cannot carry that reading. --- Source: https://www.assessall.com/guides/glossary/p/power-test