Matrices: 11+ non-verbal reasoning
A grid of figures with one square missing. What changes along the rows and down the columns tells your child what goes in it.
What the questions look like
A 2 by 2 or 3 by 3 grid with one empty square, often the last. In the simplest, one feature stays the same along each row and another down each column. In a 3 by 3 grid, each row and column may hold each of three shapes once, as in a sudoku.
Read the rows
What stays the same along each row, and what changes?
Read the columns
Do the same down each column.
Fit both
The missing figure must fit its row and its column.
A worked example
Which figure belongs in the empty square?
- ?
Along each row there’s one circle, one square and one triangle. The bottom row has a triangle and a circle, so it needs a square.
- ?
Down each column the shading stays the same: white, then grey, then black. The empty square is in the black column.
So it’s a black square.
Try 8 questions
New questions every time, in the style of GL Assessment’s papers, and marked when you finish.
The usual mistakes
Reading one direction only
Getting the shape right from the row but not checking the column, so the shading is wrong.
Copying a neighbour
Choosing the figure next to the gap or above it.
Missing a sudoku pattern
Looking for a row that stays the same when each row has each shape once.
The other kinds of question
Each has its own page with a worked example and questions to try. What non-verbal reasoning is, and who tests it.
With Exam Prep, Thena sets practice papers in your child’s test’s style and goes over every mistake with them on her board: £49 a month with the Solo plan.
Questions about matrices
How do you solve a matrix question?
Look along the rows first: what stays the same, and what changes? Then look down the columns. In a 3 by 3 grid, check whether each row has each of three things once, like a sudoku. The missing square has to fit its row and its column.
Are 3 by 3 matrices harder?
They have more to check, but more squares also give more clues. The usual extra rule is that each row and each column holds each of three shapes, or shadings, exactly once.
Thena goes over every question your child gets wrong
She draws it on her board, finds where it went wrong and works it through with them, then gives them one like it to do alone.
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