Connect Test

Company Preparation Courses IMC Round 1 – Online Assessment Connect Test

Cognitive ~4 min

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Overview

The third NeurOlympics game measures cognitive control: reacting fast, resisting the impulse to react before you should, and adapting when the situation changes. The Connect Test trains that with one rule and two keys. Two balls appear, one on the left and one on the right, one blue and one red. A fifth of a second later the central ball appears above them. You press 1 if the left ball has the central ball's colour, 0 if the right ball has it. A line connects the two, a ring shows the points for that ball, and the next one follows. Every ball is worth (1000 minus your reaction time in milliseconds) divided by 3, counted from the moment the central ball appears, so about 233 points for a 300 ms answer. A wrong key scores nothing, and so does a key pressed before the central ball is there. Speed counts more than accuracy: hesitating costs points on every ball, a wrong key costs one ball. A run is 64 balls in about ninety seconds, with each colour combination equally often. Two exercises: the Full run, at the length you pick on the setup screen (64 balls, or 128 or 192 for stamina), and the Challenge (balls until your first mistake, with a leaderboard).

Example: press the side with the central ball's colour

The left ball is blue, the right ball is red, and the central ball has just appeared: blue. The player presses 1 (left) after 280 ms. The line connects the left ball to the central ball and the ring shows the points kept, +240. Then two more balls at the same pace: a right match (+223) and a slower one, 560 ms, whose ring turns yellow (+147). Pressing 0 would have scored nothing: “That’s not right”.

Example animation

KeysSame colour: 1 left, 0 right

011 240 100 223 100 147

2,770 points 2,993 points 3,140 points

Correct: a green line and the points in the ring. Wrong side, too early or too slow: zero.

This is a looping animation of the game screen, not the live game. Play Now

Game Phases

Fingers on the keys Index fingers on 1 and 0 and they stay there for the whole game. 1 is the left ball, 0 is the right ball. Do not look at the keyboard.

Two balls, then the central one The left and right balls appear first, one blue and one red. A fifth of a second later the central ball appears above them. Nothing to do until it is there: a key pressed before that is a prediction and scores nothing.

Press the matching side The central ball's colour picks the finger: same colour on the left is 1, on the right is 0. A line connects the two balls and the ring shows your points: (1000 minus your time in ms) / 3. About 233 for a 300 ms reaction, 183 for 450 ms, nothing from 1000 ms. The ring is green when fast, yellow, then orange when slow.

Keep the pace A ball every 1.4 s or so: 64, 128 or 192 in the Full run, whichever length you pick. Every correct key is a ball connected; the results total your points and break the run into blocks so you can see whether speed and accuracy held to the end.

We are not affiliated with BrainsFirst or IMC. The Connect Test is our own practice game, built to train the skill that NeurOlympics game 3 measures; all information provided is for educational purposes to help students prepare for interviews.

Scoring

Ball connected The key of the side whose ball has the central ball's colour, pressed after the central ball appeared and within 1.5 s. The Full run plays 64, 128 or 192 balls, whichever length you pick.

333

Points per ball A connected ball earns (1000 minus the reaction time in milliseconds) / 3, counted from the central ball: 200 ms keeps 267, 300 ms keeps 233, 450 ms keeps 183, 1000 ms or more keeps nothing. Wrong side, early or late presses earn nothing.

Time and errors Median reaction time, how often you pressed the wrong side (impulsivity) and how often you pressed before the central ball was there (prediction). Best score, run count and last ten scores are kept per exercise and run length.

Top

Challenge leaderboard The Challenge runs ball after ball until the first one you do not connect: the wrong key, a key before the central ball, or no key within 1.5 s. It scores points rather than balls, so fast keys count as much as a long run, and its points go on the Top Scores board, which keeps each player's best run.

Only the Challenge has a leaderboard. In the other exercises the target is every ball connected, a median around 300 ms and zero early presses. About 190 points a ball, a 430 ms average, is the bar: roughly 12,000 over 64 balls. Bests are kept per run length. The block-by-block review shows every ball of the run as a small field with its line, and the time under it, so you can see where the wrong side caught you or where you slowed down. Finish early ends a run and shows the results for the balls so far; those runs are logged but never count as your best. Before the assessment, do the Full run at 64 balls a few times; and read the instructions in the test itself carefully, because the exact rules and the points scale can differ from ours.