Pictorial Reasoning: Picture Classification, Analogies, and Series
What Pictorial Reasoning asks
Pictorial Reasoning uses drawings of objects, animals, and simple scenes. Level A tasks include Picture Classification, Picture Analogies, and Picture Series. The child must find the rule that links pictures, not just the most familiar or most attractive picture.
Core rules
- Classification: find one property shared by every picture in the group and absent from the odd one out. Properties can be category (food, animal, vehicle), function (something you wear), or a visible feature (has wheels, has leaves).
- Analogies: read the first pair as a rule. 'Cup is to milk' means a container and what it holds. Apply that same rule to the second pair.
- Series: check one feature at a time: size, color, count, orientation, or position. Look for repeating patterns (A-B-A-B), growing patterns (1, 2, 3), and alternating changes.
- Use elimination. Cross out choices that break the rule you found.
Worked example
A picture series shows: one red star, two blue stars, one red star, two blue stars. What comes next? Separate the features. The count repeats 1, 2, 1, 2, so the next count is 1. The color repeats red, blue, red, blue, so the next color is red. The next picture is one red star. Choosing two red stars matches the color but breaks the count; choosing one blue star matches the count but breaks the color.
Traps that cost marks
Picking a picture because it belongs to the same topic rather than the same rule; tracking only color while the count changes; assuming a pattern is growing when it alternates; and ignoring the direction or position of an object.