Understanding Your Sten Score

Every AviMetric report scores your performance as a Sten (Standard Ten), a 1-to-10 scale used across real aviation and defence selection systems. If you've never seen one before, a raw number on its own tells you almost nothing. This page explains what it actually means.

Why Sten instead of a percentage?

A percentage score tells you how many questions you got "right," which barely matters on a psychomotor or reasoning test where difficulty escalates continuously. A Sten score instead places your result on a fixed 1-to-10 scale: a banded scale, not a pass/fail count. Each Sten is a range of performance defined by AviMetric for that test; a Sten of 5-6 is the middle of the scale, with the bands tapering toward 1 and 10 at the extremes. It is not a ranking against other candidates.

The five bands

A single low score isn't a verdict

Sten scores on skill-based modules (like coordination) have real session-to-session variance. A Sten of 4 on one attempt and a 7 on the next attempt, a day later, is normal and expected. What matters for genuine self-assessment is the trend across several attempts, not any single run. AviMetric gives unlimited attempts on every module for exactly this reason: one bad session shouldn't be mistaken for your ceiling.

Reading your full report

Your report breaks scores down per module rather than giving one blended number, because the traits being measured (coordination, multi-tasking, numerical reasoning, applied physics, cognitive processing) are largely independent. A strong Physics Sten and a weak Dual-Axis Control Sten is a completely normal, common profile, and it tells you exactly where to spend your remaining prep time.