Non-Verbal Reasoning Series
The STEP method in under four minutes — one real question, solved step by step.
A series is a row of five boxes. A hidden rule turns each box into the next. One box is empty, and you pick the figure that belongs there.
The empty box is often not the last one, so find it before you start. If the gap is box 1, run the row backwards. If it is in the middle, work from the boxes on either side of it.
Then expect more than one thing to be changing. That is what makes the hard ones hard. Pull the rules apart and follow each one on its own.
The method
Four steps: spot the rule, test it holds, eliminate, pick — and their first letters spell STEP.
- Step 1 of 4
Spot the rule
Take two boxes side by side, box 1 and box 2, and ask what changed. Nothing jumps out? Run the SHAPES+S checklist over that pair. Count how many things move: that is how many rules you are looking for. - Step 2 of 4
Test it holds
Does it work all the way along? Take each rule on its own and walk it across the whole row. A rule that fits one pair and fails the next is not the rule. Then picture what the empty box must hold, before you look at the options. - Step 3 of 4
Eliminate
Cross out every option that breaks a rule. Check every rule on each one, not just the one you found first. - Step 4 of 4
Pick
One is left. That is your answer.
About 25 to 30 seconds a question. Easy ones take 10, so bank that time for the hard ones.
Rules to watch
When nothing jumps out, walk the SHAPES+S checklist. In a series, start with the four that come up most: shade, how many, angle and place. Edges shows up sometimes. Size and symmetry are rare, so check them last.
Then one question this type asks and no other does: how fast is each rule going? Two rules may step together, or at different speeds. The big shape may repeat every three boxes while a marker swaps every two. Count each one on its own: "shape: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2. Marker: 1, 2, 1, 2, 1." And sometimes boxes 1, 3 and 5 make one series while boxes 2 and 4 make another.
And one more: does it come back round? Turns do, and so do fill cycles and walks round the corners. After three-quarters comes a whole turn, then it starts again. Sizes and counts do not. They just keep going.
Watch for these traps
A wrong figure usually obeys most of your rules and breaks one, on purpose.
- One rule stopped. The most common: every rule stepped on but one, so one part is left just as it was in the box next to it. Count your rules, then find each one on the figure.
- Something that should stay the same has changed. A part has turned, changed colour or gone, and no rule touches it.
- The wrong way round. Turned the other way, or flipped over like a mirror when it should turn. Put a direction in your rule.
- One step too far. The rule stepped on twice. Tempting, because the rule really is right. Step it on once.
- In the wrong place. A part sits where no step of the rule puts it, or the right change happened to the wrong part. Find the part in the last box, then in the option.
- One too many, or one too few. The count moved when it should have stayed, or stayed when it should have moved. Count the parts; do not judge by how full it looks.
- A box you can already see. Some wrong options are copied from the row. But when a pattern repeats, the answer can be a copy too, so test every figure against the rules.
Try these yourself
Now have a go yourself — tap the figure that completes the series.
Related
- The complete 11+ question-type guide
- The SHAPES+S checklist — the seven letters, with a video of their own
- NVR: Analogies — the same rule, shown once instead of four times
- NVR: Matrices — a series in a box, running two ways at once
All example questions come from the Brainblox question bank — practise this question type inside 25+ learning games, timed mock exams and focused practice. Brainblox is an independent app: not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any exam board, school or assessment publisher, and it contains no past papers.