Non-Verbal Reasoning Analogies
The TRACK method in under seven minutes — one real question, solved step by step.
In analogies you're given three shapes. Changes are made to the first shape to turn it into the second. Your job is to work out those changes, then apply them to the third shape to find what the answer shape should be.
The question asks you to decide which of the five shapes goes with the third one to make a pair like the two on the left. The two on the left are joined by an arrow. The rule is not what the second shape looks like. It is what happened to the first.
The method
Five steps: track the changes, remember what stayed the same, apply the changes, cross off the wrong answers, keep the right one. They spell TRACK.
- Step 1 of 5
Track the changes
What changed from the first shape to the second? Find every change, not just the first one you spot: most questions change two or three things at once. If you're struggling to spot them, remember the SHAPES+S checklist. - Step 2 of 5
Remember what stayed the same
The details that must not change. Hold on to them, because they are important in finding the right answer: a wrong option will often change one of them. - Step 3 of 5
Apply the changes
Do every change to the third shape, in your head, and picture the answer before you look at the options. - Step 4 of 5
Cross off the wrong answers
Go through all five, and cross off any option that gets a part wrong. Every wrong option gets all but one part right, so check each one against every change. - Step 5 of 5
Keep the right one
The one left standing is your answer. If two are left, you have missed a change, so go back to T.
About 25 to 35 seconds a question.
Things to watch out for
These are the changes that come up most often, and the one slip that loses the most marks. Each one sits on a letter of SHAPES+S.
- Swap places. Two parts trade positions, or one moves inside the other. The most common change of all. On SHAPES+S, that is Place.
- Turn it. The whole figure, or one part of it, turns round. A turn is not a flip, so check which one you are looking at. That is Angle.
- Swap the colours, or move the pattern. Black for white, or a pattern handed from one shape to another. That is Shade.
- Flip it. The figure is turned over, like a reflection in a mirror. That is Angle too.
The slip that loses the most marks: colour and pattern. A wrong option will get the turn right, get the places right, and then leave one shape the wrong colour, or copy a pattern instead of moving it. Check the shading last, on every option.
Traps
Every wrong option is almost your answer, with one part wrong on purpose.
- One change missed. The most common. Your answer needs three changes and the option makes two. Count your changes at T, then find each one.
- Something that should have stayed the same has changed. The trap in the worked example, and the reason R is its own step.
- The right change, the wrong way round. Turned anticlockwise, stacked upside down, or swapped the wrong way. Put a direction in each change.
- The right change on the wrong part. Point at the part in the third shape, then at the same part in the option.
- One too few, or one too many. Four copies came out as two, or a small mark has quietly vanished. Count the small shapes.
- The third shape with nothing done to it. It feels safe because it looks like the third shape. Something must always change.
Try these yourself
Now have a go yourself — tap the figure that makes the pair.
Related
- The complete 11+ question-type guide
- The SHAPES+S checklist — the seven letters, with a video of their own
- NVR: Series — the same rule, shown four times instead of once
- NVR: Matrices — an analogy in a box, running two ways at once
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