The AstraZeneca situational judgement test: why we sell no practice for it

Every AstraZeneca applicant thread describes two parts to the online assessment. One is reasoning against a clock. The other asks about you: how you work, what you would do, which statement sounds most like you. We built practice for the first and none for the second, and this guide explains why.

What applicants report

In the 2026 cycle, applicants describe choosing two of three statements about themselves, with no time limit, in the same assessment as the reasoning questions. In earlier cycles the behavioural part was a situational judgement test, sat as a separate section, and the report gave a band: low, medium or high. AstraZeneca's apprenticeship process names a situational judgement test alongside a general ability assessment.

What applicants say about preparing

An applicant in 2023 and another in the 2026 cycle said the same thing in different words: there is nothing to train for. The first advised picking the answers that sound most like you.

What it is measuring

Tests of this kind compare the way you would act with the way an employer wants its people to act. AstraZeneca publishes what it wants. It has five values, and says they determine how its people work together and the behaviours that drive its success:

• We follow the science.
• We put patients first.
• We play to win.
• We do the right thing.
• We are entrepreneurial.

AstraZeneca does not say how the behavioural part is scored, and we will not guess. The values are on AstraZeneca's own site.

Why we sell no practice for it

A reasoning question has a right answer and a method, and both improve with practice. A question about who you are has neither. Practice material for it would have to teach you the answers an employer wants to hear, and we see three problems with that.

1. Nobody outside the company knows the scoring. Any answer key would be a guess.
2. The questions are built to resist it. When every statement sounds good and you must choose between them, there is no obviously right one to learn. Answering as someone else also makes it hard to stay consistent across a long questionnaire.
3. It would not serve you. The part exists to show whether the way you work suits the role. An honest answer is also the one you can stand behind at the assessment centre.

What is worth doing

• Read AstraZeneca's values, and think of a time you acted on each.
• Answer as yourself, at a steady pace. Applicants report no time limit on this part.
• Be consistent. In questionnaires of this kind, similar statements tend to come round more than once.
• Put your practice time into the reasoning part, where it changes the result.