Figure Series

How it is scored

One point for every right answer, nothing taken off for a wrong one, and a skipped item scores nothing and cannot be returned to. The 15 items come easiest first, and the run ends when you answer the last one or the clock runs out, whichever is sooner. Nothing is marked until the end.

Every item is checked before it is served: the four figures shown have to pin down the rule for every attribute, so the fifth figure is fixed and only one option matches it. Each wrong option differs from the right one in at least one attribute, which means one wrong attribute is always enough to rule an option out.

Where we had to choose

SHL publishes the shape of its Verify Interactive inductive test: up to 15 items in 18 minutes, adaptive, so the items get harder as you get them right. Its classic Verify inductive test is 24 items in 25 minutes. Korn Ferry's Talent Q Elements logical test is 12 items at about 75 seconds each, and Plum's is untimed with your speed recorded. We took the Interactive ceiling, 15 in 18, and a fixed easiest first order rather than an adaptive one, because a drill that serves everyone the same ramp is the one a leaderboard can compare. No provider publishes negative marking for these, so nothing is deducted here.

The figures are ours. The real items dress the same idea differently, dominoes and grids on Plum, more elaborate drawings on SHL, and we make no claim to reproduce any of them. What carries over is the way of working: several independent rules running at once, read one attribute at a time.

How to work through one

Check one attribute at a time and in the same order every time: shape, count, fill, colour, then the dot. Say the rule for each before you look at the options, even when the rule is "stays the same". Then go down the options and throw out each one on the first attribute it gets wrong. The options are built so that one wrong attribute rules an option out, so you never need to hold the whole figure in your head, only the next attribute on the list. If two options survive, you have not finished reading the strip.