Figural Reasoning
What you must know
Figural items use abstract shapes - lines, dots, polygons, shading - and ask for analogies, classifications, or continuations of a series. Treat each figure as a set of independent elements: outer shape, inner shape, number of sides, fill or shading, position, and rotation. Track each element separately across the sequence, because most items change two or three elements according to different rules at the same time. Common transformations are rotation by a fixed angle, reflection, translation, adding or removing a side, toggling fill, and doubling or halving a count.
Traps
- Mirror images passed off as rotations; a 90° turn and a flip can look alike on symmetric shapes.
- Shading that alternates rather than progresses.
- Distractors that fix one element but break another.
- Series where the increment itself grows (rotate 45°, then 90°, then 135°).
Rule of thumb
Make a two-column table - element, then change. If every element follows a rule, the answer is fully determined; if one element never changes, that constancy is itself part of the rule. For a nine-box matrix, read across the rows and down the columns; the same rule usually operates in both directions.
Worked example: A triangle rotates 45° clockwise per frame while a dot moves one corner counterclockwise. After two frames the triangle has turned 90°, not 135°, and the dot has moved two corners back. Verify both elements before choosing.