How the Figural Reasoning test works
You get 20 questions in 10 minutes, 30 seconds each. The pictures are simple black and white symbols in square frames: stars, arrows, circles and squares that move, turn or change in number.
There are three question types. Picture Series shows four pictures and asks what the fifth should look like. Picture Comparison shows a pair of pictures and a single picture, and you choose the one that makes a matching pair. Picture Progression is a grid with one pattern running across the rows and another down the columns, and the answer has to fit both.
How to solve a Figural Reasoning question
Look for one change at a time:
- Pick a single feature, such as position, direction, count or fill, and see how it changes from one picture to the next.
- When that feature is settled, check whether a second one is also changing.
- Say the rule in words before you look at the options, such as “turns a quarter clockwise each time”.
- For Comparison questions, describe what turns the first picture into the second, then do the same to the single picture.
- For Progression grids, solve the rows and the columns separately, then find the option that obeys both.
Worked example
A Picture Series shows four frames, each with an arrow in the middle and a dot in one corner. Frame 1: arrow up, dot top left. Frame 2: arrow right, dot bottom left. Frame 3: arrow down, dot bottom right. Frame 4: arrow left, dot top right.
The arrow turns a quarter clockwise each frame, so frame 5 points up. The dot moves one corner anticlockwise each frame, so after top right it returns to top left. The answer is the frame with the arrow pointing up and the dot top left. An option with the arrow up and the dot bottom left fits only one rule.
Tips for the real Figural Reasoning test
- Keep to 30 seconds a question. If nothing has emerged by then, guess and move on.
- Position is a common rule: a symbol stepping round the edge of its frame.
- Five options means a blind guess is right only one time in five, so ruling out even two helps.
- Fill every answer before time is called. POSS has no penalty for wrong answers.
Practise Figural Reasoning on CogniPrep
You get 20 generated questions in 10 minutes, roughly an even mix of Picture Series, Picture Comparison and Picture Progression, each with five options. The paper allows free movement: skip ahead, go back, change answers, then hand in from the review grid. Anything left blank counts as wrong in the score out of 100.