How the Matrizen task works
The CAT is the Bundeswehr’s computer test, sat at a Karrierecenter or at the Musterung. The Bundeswehr says it covers logical thinking and gives quickly recognising patterns (“schnell Muster erkennen”) as an example. Matrizen is the task that does exactly that, and candidates list it as its own section.
Each item is a square grid of figures with the last cell empty. Along each row and down each column something changes by a fixed rule: the shape, the number of elements, the shading, the size, the rotation or the position. You choose the figure that obeys every rule at once.
The CAT is adaptive. Right answers tend to bring harder grids with more rules combined, wrong answers easier ones, so most people find it demanding however well they do.
How to solve a matrix
Work through the same steps on every grid:
- Read the first row left to right and name one thing that changes. Then check the second row follows the same rule.
- Look for a second rule. Harder grids change two or three things at once, sometimes one along the rows and another down the columns.
- Check for a set of three: each row may hold the same three shapes or shadings in a different order.
- Predict the missing figure in words before you look at the options, for example “a square with three dots”.
- Then check the option you pick against every rule, not just the one you spotted first. Wrong options usually differ from the answer in only one detail.
Worked example
Row 1 shows a circle with one dot, a square with two dots and a triangle with three dots. Row 2 shows a square with one dot, a triangle with two dots and a circle with three dots. Row 3 shows a triangle with one dot, a circle with two dots and an empty cell.
Two rules are at work. Every row holds one circle, one square and one triangle, so the missing shape is the square. The dots go 1, 2, 3 from left to right in every row, so the missing figure has three dots. The answer is a square with three dots. An option showing a square with two dots breaks the count rule, and a circle with three dots breaks the shape rule.
Tips for the real Matrizen task
- Expect it to feel hard. On an adaptive test a run of difficult grids usually means you are doing well, not badly.
- Do not stall on one grid. If two rules are clear and the third is not, choose the option that fits the two and move on.
- Use the scrap paper on your desk to note the rules for a hard grid, so you do not lose them while checking the options.
- The task has no words in it, so practice in English or German transfers fully.
- Candidates report two practice items before each section of the CAT. Use them to settle into the format before anything counts.
Practise Matrizen on CogniPrep
Our Matrizen drill gives you 18 grids of 3 x 3 figures on a 15-minute clock, with eight numbered options beside each grid. It is adaptive over five levels: you start at level 3, a right answer moves you up one and a wrong answer down one. Items left when the clock runs out count as wrong. Your score out of 100 reflects the level you hold in the second half of the run. The step rule, count and clock are ours, because the Bundeswehr does not publish its own.