How the Order game works
Each question shows three frames in a row. Shapes change from one frame to the next in colour, size, direction or position, and you construct the frame that comes next rather than picking it from options.
Later frames are reported to gain shapes and rules. The whole task is reported to run for 15 minutes, at roughly a minute per question.
How to build the next frame
Work through one shape and one property at a time:
- Follow a single shape across all three frames before you look at any other.
- Check its properties in a fixed order: position, direction, colour, size. Note which ones change.
- Look for a steady step: one cell along, a quarter turn, the next colour in a cycle.
- Repeat for every shape, then apply each step once more to frame three.
- Build the frame, then compare it with frame three property by property before you submit.
Worked example
Frame one has a blue triangle pointing up in the top-left cell of a grid of nine cells. In frame two it points right and sits in the top-middle cell. In frame three it points down in the top-right cell.
Two rules are running. The triangle makes a quarter turn clockwise each frame, and it moves one cell along in reading order. Its colour and size stay the same.
So the fourth frame has a blue triangle of the same size pointing left, in the first cell of the middle row.
Tips for the real Order task
- Budget about a minute a question. If one is taking much longer, build your best attempt and move on.
- Expect two rules at once in later questions. If your answer fits one rule but looks wrong, look for a second property that is changing.
- When a property seems to change at random, check whether it repeats in a cycle.
- Learn the building controls in the guided tutorial, so the clock is spent on reasoning rather than clicking.
- If you find similar shapes hard to tell apart, request an adjustment before you begin; it cannot be added later.
What your score means
Order is one of the abstract pattern tasks in Arctic Shores’ candidate guide. It does not produce a score of its own: Arctic Shores combines all your tasks into a single emailed report, sorted into “dimensions”, and marks each on a four-point scale against candidates similar to you. It does not say which dimensions Order contributes to.
A different Arctic Shores page, its candidate guidance, describes the report as a 1 to 10 spectrum for each behaviour and says you only get it if the employer chooses. Employers see a 1 to 100 fit number for each candidate, based on what they agreed good looks like in the role. Arctic Shores is clear that there is no single way to pass.
Practise Order on CogniPrep
Our Order game gives you 20 questions from a bank of 50. You build the fourth frame on a grid of nine cells from four shapes, three colours, six sizes and eight directions. Each question has 60 seconds, inside a 15-minute limit for the whole run, so you need about 45 seconds a question to reach the last one. Only an exact match counts, and the score out of 100 rewards accuracy most, then two-rule questions, pace and complexity. The question count is ours, because Arctic Shores does not publish one.