Abstract reasoning is the process of perceiving issues and reaching conclusions through the use of symbols or generalisations rather

than concrete factual information.

y Abstract reasoning tests are used to assess someone s

general intellect and ability to work out new concepts and abstract ideas, without relying on prior knowledge. In Abstract reasoning questions the purpose is to recognize patterns and similarities between shapes and figures. The ability to answer abstract reasoning questions should be independent of educational experience and cultural background, and can be used to provide an objective indication of intellectual potential. Of course this is not completely true since this ability can be trained simply by completing and studying tests which contain the type of questions you want to be trained in.

y Figure Sequences y

In this problem you ll get a sequence of several figures and you ll have to find the next most logical figure in the sequence. In the given sequence a pattern is present which you ll have to find. By recognizing this pattern you ll be able to choose the right answer from the presented options. For example:

y Figure Sequences y

In this problem you ll get a sequence of several figures and you ll have to find the next most logical figure in the sequence. In the given sequence a pattern is present which you ll have to find. By recognizing this pattern you ll be able to choose the right answer from the presented options. For example:

To solve a problem as shown in the example above, you should first try to find the pattern in the sequence of figures. In this case there is an hourglass shaped figure which is rotated clockwise by 90 degrees every next figure. This means the correct answer should be C. These kind of problems and the classify figure to fitting set problems ,which are shown below, are the two abstract reasoning test question formats, you will probably encounter the most.

y In this problem several sets of figures with a common

characteristic and one or more separate figures are presented. It is up to you to find the common characteristic of the figures in each set and to classify the sole figure(s) to one or more fitting sets. For example:

y In this question there is one image and two sets of images.

To solve it you ll first have to find the common characteristic of both sets. In the left set there is a black arrow pointing upward in every figure and in the right set shapes only occur once in every figure. The figure you have to characterize to one of both sets has a black arrow pointing upwards and there are several shapes used more then once in the image which leads to the conclusion that the figure has to be classified to the left set or set A. These kind of problems and the figure sequences problems ,which are explained above, are the two abstract reasoning test question formats, you will probably encounter most.

y In the fill up the blanks abstract reasoning questions.

You ll have to fill up the blank figures in a set of figures by choosing the most logical answer(s) from several given options. The correct figure can be found by looking at the relation between the other figures in the set. It is more or less an expanded version of figure sequences. Below a simple example is shown:

To solve the problem shown above you ll first have to derive the relation between the complete pieces of the set. Now it seems that all colors are used once in every row and once in every column so this makes answer A the correct answer.

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