NNAT3 Level A common mistakes
NNAT3 Level A · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
On Pattern Completion items, the child picks the first answer choice that contains the missing piece's colour or shape without checking whether the piece's edges line up with the surrounding pattern.
Level A items are designed so the missing region sits inside a repeating background. Young children attend to the most salient feature (a colour or a shape) and stop searching once they find a match, because feature matching is the default strategy at this age. They do not yet automatically compare boundary continuity.
What to do instead
Teach a two-step check the child says aloud: (1) name what colours/shapes touch each edge of the hole, (2) for each candidate, trace the edge with a finger and ask 'does it continue the line?' Practise on a hand-drawn 3x3 grid with one square removed, where only one cut-out piece continues the stripes. Do 5-10 such trials, then move to the workbook format.
On Pattern Completion items, the child ignores the direction and spacing of diagonal or rotated lines in the background and accepts a piece whose lines are the same colour but the wrong angle.
Orientation is a later-developing visual skill than colour or shape identity. A diagonal stripe and its mirror image look 'the same' to a child who is matching by colour only, and Level A deliberately includes mirror-image distractors.
What to do instead
Have the child describe the pattern in words before choosing: 'lines going down-left, spaced two fingers apart.' Then physically rotate a paper strip against the hole to test the angle. Build a set of 6 cards where the same stripes appear at 0, 45, 90, and mirrored angles and have the child sort them into 'same direction' and 'flipped'.
On Reasoning by Analogy items, the child matches the first pair by overall look ('both are big') and then picks an answer that shares a surface feature with the first item instead of applying the same relationship to the third item.
The analogy format requires holding a relationship (size change, colour change, rotation, count change) in mind while looking at a new pair. Children at this level often treat the item as a simple 'find the one that looks like A' task and never encode the rule.
What to do instead
Use a verbal bridge: 'A is to B as C is to ___' spoken as a sentence, e.g. 'Big circle is to small circle as big square is to small square.' Cover the answer choices while the child states the rule, then uncover and check only against the stated rule. Reject any choice that copies A's appearance rather than B's transformation.
On Reasoning by Analogy items, the child applies the correct rule but in the wrong direction (shrinks when the pair grew, or rotates the wrong way) because they did not check which item changed into which.
Direction of change is easy to lose when the two halves of the analogy are far apart on the page. The child remembers 'size changes' but not 'which way', and Level A includes both a grow and a shrink distractor.
What to do instead
Have the child point to A, then B, and say the change as a verb with a direction: 'it got bigger', 'it turned to the right'. Then point to C and repeat the same verb. Use a physical object (a block) moved from A-size to B-size and then applied to C so the direction is felt, not just seen.
On Serial Reasoning items, the child reads the sequence as a repeating cycle of two items and predicts the next item by alternating, missing a three-step or growing pattern.
Alternation (A-B-A-B) is the first and most practised pattern children learn, so it becomes a default. Level A sequences often use three-element cycles, size progressions, or a rotating shape, and a two-item guess will look plausible for the first few cells.
What to do instead
Teach the child to check the pattern against every cell, not just the next one: 'say the whole row out loud' (red, blue, green, red, blue, ...). If the spoken row breaks before the end, the rule is wrong. Give 8 short rows, half of them three-element cycles, and have the child say the full row before answering.
On Serial Reasoning items, the child tracks only one attribute (colour) and ignores a second attribute that also changes (size, number of sides, or orientation), so a distractor that fixes colour but breaks size looks correct.
Working memory at this age holds one changing feature comfortably; a second simultaneous change is easy to drop. Test designers include choices that satisfy the salient attribute and violate the secondary one.
What to do instead
Use a two-column tally on scratch paper: 'colour rule' and 'shape/size rule', and have the child state both before choosing. Start with rows where only one attribute changes, then add a second attribute once the first is reliable. Verbally rehearse: 'the colour goes round and round; the size gets bigger each time.'
On Spatial Visualization items, the child judges a folded or rotated figure by where a mark 'usually' is rather than by mentally folding the paper, so mirror-image answer choices are accepted.
Mental folding requires tracking a mark through an imagined transformation, which is demanding at this age. Children often substitute a simpler heuristic ('the dot stays near the corner') and mirror images satisfy that heuristic.
What to do instead
Have the child physically fold a small square of paper with a dot drawn on it, unfold, and compare with the picture. Repeat with the fold in the other direction so the mirror case is seen directly. Then move to a drawn version where the child points to where the dot will land before looking at the choices.
On Spatial Visualization items, the child confuses a rotation with a reflection, choosing a figure that is flipped rather than turned.
Both transformations preserve shape and size, and at this level the difference is often a single asymmetric feature (a notch, a dot, a short side). Without an anchor feature, rotation and reflection look identical.
What to do instead
Teach an anchor check: pick one distinctive feature (the pointed corner, the dot) and track only that feature through the turn. Physically rotate a cut-out shape on the desk and then flip it, and have the child say 'turned' versus 'flipped'. Use shapes with one clear asymmetry so the anchor is unambiguous.
The child spends a long time on one hard item, then rushes the remaining items and makes errors on easy ones.
Level A is timed and children have poor time monitoring. Persistence on a single puzzle feels productive, and there is no internal clock signalling that later items are being sacrificed.
What to do instead
Practise with a visible timer on short sets (e.g. 10 items in 5 minutes) and a stated rule: after one full pass over the choices with no decision, mark a guess and move on. Rehearse the 'guess and go' phrase so it is automatic. Review afterwards to show that the guessed item was often wrong anyway and the later items were easy points lost.
The child answers by elimination on the last two choices using 'which one looks nicer' or position bias (always picking B or C) instead of returning to the rule.
When two choices remain and the rule is not explicitly held, children fall back on low-effort cues, including answer-position habits built up during practice. This produces systematic errors that look random in review.
What to do instead
Require a spoken justification before marking: 'I chose this because ___.' If the child cannot finish the sentence with a rule, they must re-read the question. Track answer letters across a practice set and show the child any position pattern; then re-do those items with the justification rule enforced.