Patterns: Reasoning
Continue the number sequence
About this trainer
Patterns: Reasoning shows you a grid of abstract figures with one cell left blank, plus a row of candidate answers. Your job is to work out the hidden rule that governs how the figures change across the rows and columns, then pick the single option that completes the pattern.
What it develops
It exercises non-verbal, fluid reasoning: spotting relationships, holding several rules in mind at once, and inferring the logic behind a sequence without any words or prior knowledge. It also leans on working memory and systematic visual analysis.
History
The matrix format goes back to the Raven's Progressive Matrices, first described in a 1936 paper and published as a test in 1938. Because it needs no language and is quick to administer, it spread fast: from 1942 every recruit to the British armed forces took a short version, and similar matrix tests later ran in conscript services worldwide, including the Soviet Union. The puzzle style has since become a staple of IQ tests, school assessments and brain-training apps.
Who created it — and when
The standard ancestor is Raven's Progressive Matrices, devised by British psychologist John C. Raven together with geneticist Lionel Penrose in 1936. The matrix-completion puzzle itself is now a generic format with countless variants, so no single person owns the kind you see here, but the lineage traces straight back to Raven's original work.
How to train
Read the matrix one dimension at a time: first ask what changes from left to right across a row, then what changes top to bottom down a column, and only then combine the two. Track each attribute separately such as shape, count, size, rotation, shading and position. Eliminate options that break any rule rather than hunting for the one that looks right, and on hard items check your answer against both the row rule and the column rule.
How long to practise
Short, focused sets work best: 10 to 15 minutes, a few times a week. Stop when items start feeling like guesswork, since fatigue turns reasoning into pattern-guessing and you stop learning.
Evidence base
The solid finding is the unsurprising one: with practice you get better at matrix puzzles themselves, and repeated testing reliably raises your score on this kind of task even without coaching. Whether that gain reflects sharper general reasoning or just better test-taking strategy is debated, and the strongest claim, that training abstract reasoning broadly raises fluid intelligence or IQ, is weak. The famous result that dual n-back training boosts matrix reasoning largely failed to replicate, so treat any promise of a general intelligence boost with caution.
Recommendations
Slow down on the hard items and name the rule out loud before you tap; verbalising the logic catches mistakes that fast pattern-matching misses.
FAQ
Will this raise my IQ?
Honestly, probably not in any general sense. You will get noticeably better at matrix puzzles and similar reasoning tasks, but evidence that the skill spreads to broad, real-world intelligence is weak, so we do not promise an IQ boost.
How is this different from a memory game?
Memory games test what you can hold and recall; this tests what you can infer. Nothing needs to be memorised, the whole puzzle stays on screen and the challenge is reasoning out the rule that connects the figures.
I keep getting the hard ones wrong. What am I missing?
Usually there is more than one rule running at once. Solve each attribute separately such as shape, then count, then rotation, then shading, and verify your pick against both the row and the column before committing.
Variants
Versions range from simple 2x2 grids up to dense 3x3 matrices with several overlapping rules; some use colour, some only black-and-white. Close relatives include number and letter series, odd-one-out sets, visual analogies (A is to B as C is to ?) and figure-folding tasks, all built on the same find-the-rule idea.