The 12 Pymetrics Games Explained
Every Pymetrics mini-game you will face — what it tests, how to approach it, and the trait it scores.
What the 12 games measure
Pymetrics scores you across roughly nine trait categories — attention, effort, fairness, learning, decision-making, emotion, focus, generosity, and risk tolerance. There is no single "right" score; BCG matches your trait profile against successful consultants from your target office.
The 12 games
1. Balloons — risk tolerance
Pump balloons to earn money; cash out before they pop. Different colors have different pop thresholds. Lesson: adapt to feedback, do not over-pump.
2 & 3. Money Exchange — trust and altruism
You play both sides of a trust game. Send money to a partner (it triples on arrival) and decide what they return. Aim for a balanced, prosocial profile — neither hoarding nor reckless.
4. Keypresses — effort
Press the spacebar as fast as you can. Just go all-out.
5. Arrows — attention and flexibility
React to a central arrow, but sometimes follow the surrounding arrows. Read the instruction line carefully each round.
6. Digit Span — working memory
Memorize and repeat sequences of digits. Practice forward and reverse spans before test day.
7. Faces — emotional intelligence
Identify emotions on faces. Context cues can mislead — focus on the face.
8. Towers of Hanoi — planning
Move discs between pegs. Think two moves ahead, never place a larger disc on a smaller one.
9. Stop Signal — impulse control
Respond to arrows, but stop when you hear a beep. Train yourself to wait a fraction of a second.
10. Cards (Iowa Task) — decision-making
Four decks; some pay more but punish harder. Track which decks penalize you and shift away from them.
11. Lengths — perceptual speed
Pick the longer of two lines, fast. Speed matters more than perfection.
12. Easy or Hard — motivation
Choose easy small-reward tasks or hard large-reward tasks. Mix shows ambition calibrated to probability of success.
Final advice
Do not try to game it — Pymetrics is built to detect inauthentic responses. Practice mainly to remove first-time anxiety so your real profile comes through.
Keep learning
Related guides
- Pymetrics emotion recognition: the game that surprises candidates
How the face-reading task is scored — and why speed and accuracy matter equally.
- A three-day Pymetrics practice plan
Enough preparation to feel calm — not so much that you over-rehearse and distort your trait profile.
- Pymetrics risk games: balloon, cards, and the trait Pymetrics is actually measuring
What the balloon-pump and card-deck games measure — and why playing 'safer' isn't the right strategy.
Glossary
- Pymetrics
A suite of short behavioral and cognitive games used by BCG and other firms to measure cognitive and emotional traits.
- Reaction time
Speed of response to a stimulus, measured in milliseconds.
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BCG Pymetrics vs JPMorgan PymetricsPymetrics games are the same across employers, but each firm calibrates the trait benchmark differently. Here's what changes between BCG and JPM.