The advantages of shear tests for identification of the flow curve of metallic material were described by comparing the other test methods, for example, uniaxial tension/compression test. The research on metallic material shear tests was reviewed in this paper, in which the tests were divided into two kinds of shear tests according to the stress state of deformation zone during testing, i.e. shear test under simple stress state and shear test under complex stress state result from other loading methods. All kinds of devices and typical geometries of specimens were introduced and the loading methods of shear tests were described in this paper. The applications of all kinds of shear test were summarized according to the advantages and disadvantages of shear test method.