How the Exclusie test works
Each item is a row of five figures, a to e. Four of them follow the same principle and one does not. You choose that one. The first items turn on something obvious, such as size or round against straight-edged shapes; later items hide the rule among differences that do not matter.
Exclusie is one of eight subtests in the MCT-M and MCT-H, and one of six parts of the adaptive MCT-A. Your score is the number of items you get right, so a wrong answer costs nothing beyond the missed mark. Before the clock starts, you work through example and practice items, and you can only begin once the practice items are answered correctly.
Because the figures need no words, Exclusie is the same whichever language the organisation chose for your test.
How to find the odd one out
Run the same check on every item:
- Go through one feature at a time: outline, size, shading, the direction of any line, the number of marks, and where the marks sit.
- For each feature, count how the five figures split. A split of three against two is a decoy. You want four against one.
- If no single feature splits four against one, compare parts within each figure: does a line point at a dot, do two marks match, is the shape symmetrical?
- Once you have a four against one split, choose it and move on. Do not keep searching for a second rule.
Worked example
Five figures, each with a straight line drawn inside: a, a large shaded square with a vertical line; b, a small white circle with a vertical line; c, a large white triangle with a vertical line; d, a small shaded hexagon with a horizontal line; e, a large white square with a vertical line.
Shape does not help: the outlines are all different except two squares. Size splits large (a, c, e) against small (b, d), three against two. Shading splits shaded (a, d) against white (b, c, e), also three against two. The inner line is vertical in a, b, c and e and horizontal only in d. That is four against one, so the answer is d.
Tips for the real Exclusie test
- Seven minutes for 30 items is about 14 seconds each. Most people do not finish, so do not stall on one item.
- Use the practice items to learn the format. You cannot start the timed part until you answer them correctly.
- Guess rather than leave an item blank. A wrong answer scores the same as no answer.
- Do not stop the test during a timed subtest. You can stop between subtests and carry on later.
- Sit it on a desktop or tablet. NOA advises against a phone for its capacity tests.
Practise Exclusie on CogniPrep
Our Exclusion game gives you 30 items on one 7-minute clock, from easy to hard, with five figures each. Your answer moves you straight on, and you can skip. The figures are generated for each run, so a replay is a new set. Your score is the number right, and the results page shows the band, Lager, Midden or Hoger, that it would fall in against CogniPrep users, not NOA’s norm group.