Alternative Uses Test
Covered skills
Relevant for
Great for improving creativity, problem-solving skills, and developing innovative approaches to everyday challenges.
Description
Unleash innovative thinking with our Alternative Uses Test—the gold standard assessment of divergent thinking and creative problem-solving. This classic creativity measure challenges you to transcend conventional thinking by generating multiple novel uses for everyday objects, revealing your capacity for cognitive flexibility, imaginative thinking, and breaking free from functional fixedness.
How It Works: You'll receive 3 common objects (like a brick, paperclip, or newspaper) and have 10 minutes per object to brainstorm as many alternative uses as possible. No idea is too unconventional—creativity thrives on quantity first, quality emerges from volume. Your responses are evaluated on fluency (total ideas generated), flexibility (variety of conceptual categories), and originality (uniqueness compared to common responses).
The Psychology of Divergent Thinking: Developed by psychologist J.P. Guilford and refined by E. Paul Torrance, this test measures divergent thinking—the ability to generate multiple solutions to open-ended problems. Research shows divergent thinking predicts real-world creative achievement in arts, sciences, entrepreneurship, and innovation. It's distinct from convergent thinking (finding single correct answers) and correlates with breakthrough innovations, artistic output, and entrepreneurial success.
Why This Matters: Innovation demands seeing beyond intended functions. Can you reimagine familiar objects in radical ways? Generate abundant ideas before judging them? Connect disparate concepts? These skills drive product innovation, creative problem-solving, design thinking, and any field requiring novel approaches to existing challenges. Companies increasingly value divergent thinkers who challenge assumptions and propose unconventional solutions.
Professional Applications: Designers use divergent thinking for ideation, entrepreneurs for business model innovation, engineers for alternative solutions, marketers for campaign creativity, and researchers for hypothesis generation. This skill is trainable—regular practice expands creative capacity measurably.
Enhance Creativity: Complement this with our Creativity Test for broader creative assessment, or try the Story Creation Test for narrative creativity.
Creative Insights: Receive detailed analysis of your fluency scores, flexibility across categories, originality ratings, and specific techniques for expanding divergent thinking through structured brainstorming practice and creativity exercises.