Practice for aptitude tests

Abstract reasoning test practice: matrices and series of shapes

Timed abstract reasoning: complete the matrix or continue the series of shapes. New figures every sitting, the rule shown after each answer. Free.

Have a test date? Make a practice plan to your test date: which days to practise, a calendar file, and questions this device has not been given before. It is kept on this device only if you ask.

How this drill works

The drill deals 12 questions on an 8-minute clock, 40 seconds a question, with nothing to read but the instruction. Most are three-by-three grids with the last cell missing; the rest are series of four tiles where you choose the fifth. Each question has four to six drawn options.

The questions climb in three steps. A short warm-up has one obvious rule. The middle questions have one rule each: the shapes rotate through a row, a fill advances from outline to solid, or a count grows across the columns. The last third has two or three rules acting at once, for example the row setting the shape while the column sets the fill.

Every figure comes from a vetted pool and was checked against every distinct figure its rule could produce, so exactly one option fits every rule the question shows; the drawings themselves are built in your browser when the sitting starts. The options are dealt as a balanced set, so picking the option that looks most like the others does not find the answer.

After the clock stops you see your count and your pace, and every question again with its key and the rule in words. Odd-one-out questions are not in this drill; the untimed abstract set has them.

The drill in brief

Format

A grid with one cell missing, or four tiles and a fifth to come; four to six drawn options.

Question types

Grids with one rule, series with one rule, and grids and series where two or three rules act at once.

Questions and clock

12 questions in 8 minutes.

Calculator

Not needed.

Result

How many you answered correctly, your pace, and the rule for every question. No percentile or pass mark.

Whose test

Original figures in the common format, not any publisher’s test.

Three figures, worked

All three are drawn by the same builders the drill uses, at numbers the drill does not deal. In a two-rule grid, read the row and the column separately: the row may set the shape while the column sets the fill, and the missing cell needs both.

A grid with one rule

A series

A grid with two rules at once

Three costly mistakes

• Reading only the rows. In a two-rule grid the row may set one thing and the column another. Check the missing cell against its row and against its column before you choose.
• Stopping at the first option that fits. Several options usually satisfy one rule. Test each candidate against every rule you found; the answer is the only one that passes all of them.
• Spending the clock on one figure. At 40 seconds a question, a grid you cannot read in that time is worth a guess and a note. Come back if the clock allows: a wrong answer costs nothing more than a blank.

Seeing the rule sooner

Name the properties before you look for a pattern: shape, fill, count, position and rotation. Then ask which of them changes along a row, which along a column, and which stays put. Most single-rule questions fall to that list in a few seconds, and it is the same list that untangles a two-rule grid.

The guide to matrix reasoning walks through the kinds of rule one by one, and the untimed matrix and pattern tests give you twenty figures each with every rule explained, if you want to practise reading rules before you add the clock.