Serial Reasoning Flashcards

A pattern shows shapes doubling: 1 triangle, 2 triangles, 4 triangles, ___. What comes next?

Answer: 8 triangles

The number of triangles doubles each step, so 4 × 2 = 8.

A matrix row shows: striped circle, striped square, striped triangle. The next row shows plain versions of each. What rule governs the rows?

Answer: The fill pattern changes but the shapes stay the same

The shapes remain identical while the fill switches from striped to plain.

In a serial figure set, a square rotates 45° clockwise each step. After four steps starting from upright, what does the figure look like?

Answer: Upright square (back to start)

Four rotations of 45° = 180°... wait — 4 × 45° = 180°, giving an upside-down square which looks like an upright square.

A 3×3 matrix has shapes arranged so that each row and each column contains exactly one circle, one square, and one triangle. The top row is circle-square-triangle, the left column is circle-triangle-square. What is the center cell?

Answer: Circle

The center row must contain triangle-circle-square (to complete both the row and column constraints), placing a circle in the center.

Each step in a sequence adds a border around the previous figure: step 1 is a dot, step 2 is a dot inside a circle, step 3 is a dot inside a circle inside a square. What is step 4?

Answer: Dot inside a circle inside a square inside a triangle

Each step adds the next shape as an outer border, following the established sequence of shapes.

A sequence of figures shows a line getting shorter by one unit each step: 5 units, 4 units, 3 units, ___. What comes next?

Answer: 2 units

The line decreases by one unit per step, so after 3 units comes 2 units.

In a matrix, the number of sides of shapes increases left to right across each row. If the first column always has triangles (3 sides), what shape is always in the third column?

Answer: Pentagon (5 sides)

Each column adds one side, so column 2 has squares (4) and column 3 has pentagons (5).