Comprehensive Trail-Making Test
What It Measures
The Comprehensive Trail-Making Test (CTMT) expands the familiar trail-making task into five timed trails. In each, the person draws a line connecting a sequence of numbers or letters in order, as fast as they can, and the score is simply how many seconds it takes.
The trails get harder in specific ways. Trail 1 connects the numbers 1 through 25 in plain circles. Trail 2 adds empty distractor circles that must be ignored. Later trails introduce number words and require alternating between sequences, which demands set shifting — holding two rules and switching between them. Because the trails vary systematically rather than randomly, comparing performance across them shows whether the difficulty lies in speed, in resisting distraction, or in switching.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Now distributed by PAR and WPS, the second edition (CTMT-2, 2019) carries a Level C qualification requirement. Forms are consumables. Reproduction requires publisher permission.
