Can You Practise for Arctic Shores? What Familiarity Changes

Arctic Shores tells candidates to be themselves and says they do not need to practise. Forums and prep sites, this one included, describe the tasks in detail. Here is what each side says, and what familiarity can and cannot change.

The short answer

Arctic Shores says no practice is needed, but that getting familiar with the format is fine. Familiarity can take some surprises out of the day: controls, pace and setup. It cannot give you right answers to the reported behaviour tasks, which have no published right answer, and it cannot change the role framework or the comparison group your results are judged against. Nothing here claims that practising changes Arctic Shores results.

What Arctic Shores says about practice

In its help-centre article "Do I need to practice?", Arctic Shores says you just need to be yourself, that there is no skill involved and that "no practice is needed". Getting familiar with the format, it adds, is totally fine. Arctic Shores also says:

• There is an official practice task in the preliminary section, behind a "Try our practice assessment" button on the left. It does not count towards your score, and it lets you check that your device works.
• You can re-read the task instructions as many times as you wish.
• The tasks do not test knowledge or past experience.

The same article warns that help guides found online outside Arctic Shores' own website and knowledge base may be misleading or false. It says using them results in "poor or invalid measures", making you less likely to progress, and advises you to forget any guides and complete the tasks naturally.

That warning covers guides like this one, including Candidate Falcon's task guides and simulations. Treat this post as background on the format, not instructions for how to respond.

What practice can change

Start with the official options: the practice task inside your assessment, and the public Arctic Shores demo task, which suggests doing the practice task first and says it takes about five minutes. Beyond those, familiarity removes friction rather than teaching answers:

• Controls and pace. Candidates report that Direction uses the Q and P keys and speeds up, and that Tickets switches rules by where the number appears.
• Fewer surprises. Arctic Shores says the employer chooses the tasks, that there are up to nine, and that finishing one unlocks the next.
• Device and setup. Arctic Shores recommends a device no more than four years old, stable WiFi, a fully charged battery and notifications off, plus browser extensions, auto-translate, extra tabs and VPNs turned off. You can borrow a device; the owner cannot see or affect your results.
• Knowing some tasks are untimed. Candidates report that Security, Balloon and Token Search have no clock.

What practice cannot change

• Behaviour tasks. The behaviour tasks candidates report, Balloon and Team Sales, have no published right answer, so there is nothing to rehearse beyond the controls.
• The role framework. Arctic Shores says results are compared with a framework of the behaviours that matter for the specific role and organisation, and only the most essential count. Arctic Shores does not say what any employer's framework contains, so there is nothing specific to practise towards.
• The comparison group. Arctic Shores compares your results with a norm group of demographically similar people who took the assessment before.
• What each task feeds into. Arctic Shores says each task measures something different and that multiple tasks measure multiple traits, but it "can't spill all our secrets". Apart from its public description of the Security task, it does not say what each task measures.
• Your own task set. The employer picks the tasks, and descriptions elsewhere come from candidate reports, so what you see may differ. Arctic Shores advises reading the instructions carefully.

Which tasks familiarity plausibly matters for

Arctic Shores publishes no task list. The tasks below come from candidate reports and prep sites, and the grouping is our own interpretation, not Arctic Shores'. Your employer may use only a few of them.

Reaction and attention: Direction, Tickets, Security

Controls and pace matter most here. Candidates report that Direction asks which way the centre arrow points, Q for left and P for right, over roughly 80 fast rounds. In Tickets, a number sits inside a shape, and its position decides whether you judge the number or the shape. Several candidates called it the hardest task.

Arctic Shores has described Security in public: in an April 2024 episode of the TA Disruptors podcast, published as an Arctic Shores insight, occupational psychologist Jill Summers said the dial speed adapts to the candidate and that the task measures processing speed and perseverance. Reddit claims that the lock cannot be finished, or that a set number of minutes is optimal, are unverified.

Memory: Tiles and Token Search

Candidates report that Tiles asks you to repeat growing sequences of lit tiles, later leaving out a distractor icon, and that in Token Search a token never returns to a box that already held one. Knowing the rules saves working them out mid-task. Arctic Shores does not say how either is scored, so there is no known technique to learn. Firefly Freedom is a legacy memory game that only some employers still list.

Learning from feedback: Predict and Energy

In Predict, candidates report, you predict Day or Night for pairs of icons and then see the real outcome. In Energy, candidates report choosing repeatedly between four generators and learning which ones build power over time. Both are reported to be about learning from feedback as you go, and there is no published answer key to memorise. One candidate said that after doing Predict twice for other roles, they still felt they were guessing.

Reasoning and numerical: Balance, Order, Patterns, Analysis

Arctic Shores says there is no right or wrong way to approach its tasks, but the reported formats of these four look like puzzles with correct answers. Candidates and prep sites describe Balance as working out shape weights from scales, Order as building the fourth frame of a sequence, Patterns as picking the next square in a series, and Analysis as timed multiple-choice questions on tables and charts. Not every employer includes Patterns or Analysis.

Practising similar puzzle types can make the question types familiar. Separately, a 2007 meta-analysis of cognitive ability tests in general found that people tend to score higher when they retake a test, with a small to moderate average gain. It was not a study of Arctic Shores, so it cannot tell you whether anything similar applies here.

Behaviour: Balloon and Team Sales

Candidates report that Balloon has you pump balloons for money and collect before they burst, and that Team Sales has you choose a high or low price against a rival team over 12 rounds. Familiarity tells you what the buttons do. That is all it can do here.

Perception: Expressions

In Expressions, candidates report labelling the emotion on about 50 faces from a fixed list of seven, as the expressions become less obvious. Some suggest Paul Ekman's micro-expression training, but whether it helps here is unverified. Several neurodivergent candidates worry the task disadvantages them; the reasonable adjustments guide explains how to ask for support before you start.

The Reddit debate

One argument plays out on r/Airbus. In September 2025, a candidate posted an AMA claiming a "perfect score" after four to five hours of study, and urged others to ignore the official advice to be yourself. Other commenters said they had scored the same without preparing, some accused the poster of cheating, and one recommended a commercial practice site.

Two other comments side with the AMA poster. One commenter said the tests come down to repetition: they did badly at first and improved as they got used to the format. In September 2026, a candidate on r/Airbus said they had not practised because they thought you couldn't, and felt they would have done better if they had. Against that, the candidate mentioned earlier still felt they were guessing on Predict after doing it twice for other roles.

None of this is verified, and the accounts disagree. A shared score does not show what caused it. A commenter identifying as an Airbus graduate recruiter also said that, at Airbus, passing is not simply about having more points, and that the employer receives a different format from the scores candidates see. That is one employer's practice, as reported by a self-identified recruiter. The Reddit roundup and the guide to reading your results go further.

How to practise sensibly

1. Do the official practice task and, if you want an earlier look, the public demo task.
2. Check your setup on the device you will use, with the list above.
3. Read about the formats in the Arctic Shores assessment guide, remembering that it is an outside guide, so Arctic Shores' warning applies to it. You may meet only a few: several candidates applying to the Airbus graduate programme in September 2025 reported three tasks.
4. Keep hands-on practice short. The aim is knowing the controls and pace, not rehearsing answers.
5. Declare any adjustments before you begin. Arctic Shores says they cannot be added once you start.
6. On the day, follow Arctic Shores' advice: a quiet space, the time of day you feel most alert, one sitting if possible, instructions read carefully, any outside guide (this one included) set aside, and each task approached naturally.

What to avoid

• Scripts for behaviour tasks. Arctic Shores says the assessment aims to capture your natural, default behaviour. A forum strategy for Balloon or Team Sales would describe the strategy, not you.
• Generative AI. Arctic Shores says to check the employer's policy, that tools like ChatGPT would not be very helpful because the data comes from your natural reactions, and that none of the tools it tried could complete an assessment.
• Anything that breaks the employer's rules. Your invitation and the employer's policy decide what is allowed.
• Unverified "optimal" strategies, such as a set number of minutes on Security.

Where Candidate Falcon fits

Our free Arctic Shores assessment guide and task pages describe each reported format and are free to read. If you want to try the reported controls and pace, the Arctic Shores practice page has simulations of all 15 reported tasks. Playing them needs the HireVue Games Prep plan, which also includes our 11 HireVue game simulations, or Full Access (see pricing).

The simulations are independent recreations built from candidate reports, not the real tasks, and a result in them is not an Arctic Shores score. We do not claim they change your results, and Arctic Shores' warning about outside guides applies to them too. For setup and adjustments, see the evidence-checked preparation guide.

FAQs

Can you practise for Arctic Shores?

You can get familiar with the format. Arctic Shores says no practice is needed but that familiarity is fine, and it offers an official practice task and a public demo task.

Does practising improve your Arctic Shores results?

Arctic Shores says no practice is needed, and warns that using help guides found outside its own website and knowledge base "will result in poor or invalid measures", making you less likely to progress. Reddit accounts point both ways and cannot be checked. What familiarity can offer is fewer surprises about controls, pace and setup.

Does the Arctic Shores practice task count towards my score?

No. Arctic Shores says it does not contribute to your score and is a chance to check that your device works.

Is there a right answer in Balloon or Team Sales?

No published right answer exists for either. Arctic Shores says the assessment aims to capture your natural behaviour.

Can I use ChatGPT during an Arctic Shores assessment?

Check the employer's policy first. Arctic Shores says generative AI tools would not be very helpful, and that none of the tools it tried could complete an assessment.

Sources

• Do I need to practice?: the official position and the warning about outside guides.
• Can I use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools?.
• What is a Task-Based Assessment? and What do the tasks measure?.
• What does the assessment involve?.
• I disagree with my results and How will my results be used?: role frameworks and norm groups.
• Devices and web browsers and the assessment overview.
• Arctic Shores candidate guidance and the public demo task.
• Arctic Shores insight on task-based assessments: the Security task.
• Hausknecht and colleagues (2007), Retesting in selection: a meta-analysis of coaching and practice effects for tests of cognitive ability, Journal of Applied Psychology 92(2).
• Candidate reports: public Reddit threads (r/Airbus, r/degreeapprenticeships, r/TheCivilService and others, 2023–2026) and prep-site task descriptions. Individual reports, not official information.

Candidate Falcon is independent and not affiliated with Arctic Shores.