What is tested
Symbiotics documents Control & Co-ordination as a continuous manual-control task: a marker or indicator drifts away from a target position, and the candidate applies simple directional inputs to keep it centred, sustained across the test duration.
The task sounds simple, and in isolation it is. What makes it a meaningful selection tool is that the disturbance is continuous — there is no pause to recover between corrections — so the test is really measuring the quality of your control loop, not any single response.
Overshoot vs. a corrected response
The most common way candidates lose marks here is not slow reactions — it is correcting by the wrong amount. A correction that is too large relative to the error pushes the marker past target in the other direction, producing a new error that then needs correcting itself.
The green trace responds early with small proportional corrections and settles near target quickly. The orange trace reacts with larger corrections, overshoots, corrects again, overshoots again in the opposite direction, and only gradually damps down — the same underlying disturbance, a noticeably worse outcome.
Control profiles
Smooth and centred
Small, continuous corrections keep the marker close to target throughout. This is the profile the test is built to reward.
Over-controlled
Corrections are too large for the size of the error, producing a repeating overshoot-correct-overshoot pattern instead of settling.
Under-controlled
Corrections are too small or too infrequent, so drift accumulates and the marker spends long stretches away from target.
Delayed reaction
The direction and size of each correction are basically right, but they arrive late — the error has already grown before a response starts.
How to train it
Do not train for speed first. Start by deliberately under-reacting — small corrections, checking whether they were enough, then adjusting the size of the next one — rather than immediately trying to snap the marker back to centre. This builds a feel for how much correction a given amount of drift actually needs.
Once corrections are well-scaled, then work on frequency: catching drift earlier means each individual correction can stay smaller, which is what keeps a trace looking like the green line above rather than the orange one.
Frequently asked questions
What is actually being controlled?
Symbiotics documents this as a continuous manual-control task: keeping a marker or indicator centred against a disturbance using simple directional inputs, sustained over the test duration.
Is this about reaction time?
Partly, but reaction time alone does not predict good performance. A fast but oversized correction can make tracking worse, not better — the test rewards well-scaled corrections, not just quick ones.
Can this be trained, or is it innate?
Continuous tracking and psychomotor coordination respond well to practice. The skill being built is a feel for how large a correction a given error needs, which comes from repetition against a live target, not from reading about it.
Does prior gaming or flight-sim experience help?
Familiarity with continuous joystick or mouse control generally transfers, but the specific relationship between input size and error size still needs to be learned against this task in particular.
The other ADAPT components
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Build a feel for well-scaled corrections
Control Stabilization and Flight Path Tracking both run continuous manual-tracking tasks against a live disturbance, the same structural pattern this test is built around.
Create a Free AccountPractice targets the underlying skills rather than reproducing proprietary assessment content.
Primary source: Symbiotics Control & Co-ordination documentation and current FAQ. CBAT Academy is an independent training resource, not affiliated with or endorsed by Symbiotics.