Series: 11+ non-verbal reasoning
A row of boxes shows a figure changing one step at a time. Your child finds the step and fills the empty box.
What the questions look like
Five boxes in a row, one of them empty: usually the last, sometimes one in the middle. One or two things change from box to box: the figure turns the same amount each time, a dot moves round the corners, the marks count up or down, or the shading takes turns.
Compare neighbours
Look at two boxes side by side and say what changed.
Check the step carries on
The same change must happen between every pair of boxes.
Take the next step
Make the change once more for the empty box, and check nothing else has changed.
A worked example
Which figure goes in the empty box?
- ?
The arrow turns a quarter turn clockwise each box: up, right, down, left.
- ?
And there’s one more dot each box: one, two, three, four.
One more quarter turn brings it back to pointing up, with five dots. That’s the empty box.
Try 8 questions
New questions every time, in the style of GL Assessment’s papers, and marked when you finish.
The usual mistakes
Following one change only
Turning the arrow but forgetting to add a dot.
Turning the wrong way
Going anticlockwise because the turn wasn’t checked from box to box.
Copying the last box
Choosing a figure the same as the box before the gap.
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 series
What changes in a series question?
Usually one or two things at a time: the figure turns the same amount each box, a dot moves round the corners, the number of marks goes up or down by one, or the shading takes turns. Everything else stays the same.
What if the gap is in the middle?
The same rule works both ways. Work out the step from the boxes either side of the gap, and check it carries on to the boxes after it.
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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