EPSO abstract reasoning test: the rules behind the figure series

The abstract reasoning test is 10 questions in 10 minutes: one minute to find the figure that comes next in a series. It has no words, so it is the same in every language, and its score is added to your numerical score for a combined pass mark of 10 out of 20. This guide covers what a question looks like, the rules that drive the series and a way to find the answer inside a minute.

What a question looks like

In EPSO’s public sample each question is one picture: a row of five boxed figures that form a series, and below them five candidate figures marked A to E. You choose the one that comes next. The figures are black line drawings: arrows, dots, small circles, crosses, triangles, shading and small grids. On a laptop screen 768 pixels high, the last options sit below the bottom of the question area, so expect to scroll.

The rules behind the series

Each series is driven by two or three rules running at once, each acting on a different element. In EPSO’s sample we saw these:

• Rotation by a fixed step, such as a quarter turn each time.
• Rotation by a changing step: a quarter turn, then a half, then three quarters.
• Movement along a path: an element moving one place per frame, from corner to corner, round the edge or from cell to cell.
• Independent movement: two marks moving on their own paths over a background that stays the same.
• Swaps: symbols changing places in a two-by-two grid.

Preparation providers report further families, which are worth knowing:

• Alternation: something that changes every second frame.
• Counting: the number of sides, dots or lines going up or down by one each time.
• Shading and size: fills or sizes cycling in a fixed order.
• Reflection: an element flipping across an axis.
• Dependence: one element’s position or state deciding how another moves.
• A distractor: an element that follows no rule and is there to use up your time.

A method for one minute

1. Pick one element and follow it across all five frames: one arrow, one dot, one shaded cell. Ignore everything else for now.
2. Name its rule in words: turns a quarter clockwise; moves one corner along.
3. Strike out the options that break that rule. The answer elimination tool on the platform does this on screen.
4. Take the next element and repeat with the options that are left.
5. When the minute is up, choose among the options still standing, bookmark the question and move on. Ten minutes for ten questions leaves no room to stall.

A practice series, in words

Real questions are pictures. This one is described in words so that you can try the method here.

Real questions usually carry a third element as well, which may follow a rule of its own or none at all.

Pacing and the shared pass mark

Ten minutes for ten questions is the tightest clock in Part 1. Because abstract and numerical share one pass mark of 10 out of 20, every abstract mark is worth exactly as much as a numerical one, so if numerical is your weaker test, abstract is where you can make the combined pass mark safe. Neither score is carried into the ranking: that is the job of verbal reasoning.

How to practise

• Learn the rule families first, untimed, until you can name a rule within a few seconds of seeing it.
• Then do sets of 10 in 10 minutes, on screen, scrolling as you will have to on a laptop.
• After each set, name the rule you missed in every question you got wrong.

Each of our mocks contains 10 abstract questions drawn in our own style from named rules, two or three at a time. Every one is checked by a separate solver so that exactly one option fits, and the worked answer names each rule and the one each wrong option breaks. See also the numerical reasoning guide.