The SHAPES+S Checklist
What the seven letters are, when to reach for them, and two questions decided by walking the list.
SHAPES+S is not a question type. It is the list of things that can change in a non-verbal reasoning picture, and it is always the same seven. Learn it once and it works on codes, series, analogies, matrices, odd-one-out — every type where you have to spot what is going on.
What one looks like
Non-verbal questions do not tell you what to look at. Five pictures appear, something about them is different, and the whole difficulty is finding which something.
Most of the time you do not need a list. Something jumps out — a letter repeats, a shape obviously grows, a dot walks round a square — and you follow it. SHAPES+S is for the other times: no repeat, no obvious pattern, and you are staring at five pictures with no idea what is going on.
Then you stop staring and start walking. Take the seven features in order, ask one question each, and stop at the first feature that separates one picture from the rest. Most questions are decided in the first two or three.
How to use it
Seven beats: shade, how many, angle, place, edges, size, and symmetry last. Each card below changes exactly one thing, so you can see what that feature means with nothing else moving.
Same shape, same size, same markers, same everything — only the fill changed. Judge a tone against the picture next to it, not from memory.
Nothing moved and nothing changed colour. There is simply one more marker than there was. Count out loud — a shape can appear, vanish, split or double.
A turn walks one corner round the shape. A mirror jumps it straight across. They look alike and they are not the same thing — that catch decides the second example below.
One marker, before and after. It has not changed shade or size or count — it has moved. Place is the most tested feature of the seven.
Four sides became six. Nothing else moved. Count sides when two shapes look similar but not identical — a solid line gone dashed belongs here too.
Same shape, same shade, same marker in the same place — just smaller. Size is easy to miss when a figure sits on its own rather than beside a twin.
Two markers both times. On the left the figure folds down the middle onto itself; on the right it does not. Notice what actually changed, though: a marker MOVED. Symmetry is never a change of its own — it is what a change to place, angle or how-many does to the whole figure. That is why it goes last, and why it hardly ever turns up.
Where to use it
Not first. Reach for the list when nothing jumps out, and it will pull an answer out of a question that looked impossible.
- Codes. Two pictures share a code letter — what do those two have in common? Walk the list until one feature is true of both. See NVR: Shape Codes.
- Odd one out. Partition the five by each feature in turn. The answer is the feature that leaves exactly one picture on its own — both worked examples below are this kind.
- Series and matrices. Ask which feature is moving along the row, then check whether a second one is moving too. Two things changing at once is the commonest way a series gets hard.
- Analogies. Whatever happened between the first pair has to happen to the third picture. Name it with the list, then do it.
Two habits worth having. Stop the moment something separates — you do not score extra for checking all seven. And leave symmetry till the end: it hardly ever decides a question, and it is not really a change of its own (see its card above).
Worked example: nothing jumps out
Five pictures, each holding a few shapes. Which one is the odd one out? Nothing obvious separates them, so walk the list from the top.
Shade splits the five two-and-three, so nobody is left alone by it. Edges splits them three-and-two, so that is no help either. How many is the one that works: four pictures hold two shapes and one holds three.
Worked example: a turn or a mirror?
Five pictures, each holding one flag. Which one is the odd one out? Every flag points a different way, which makes "the odd direction" useless — they are all odd.
This is the one people miss. Shade leaves nobody alone and every picture holds exactly one shape, so how many cannot separate anybody. Angle decides it, but by the second half of the angle question rather than the first: four of the flags are the same flag turned round, and one is a mirror image that no amount of turning will ever reach.
Watch for these traps
- Reaching for the list first. It is a fallback, not an opening move. If a repeat or a pattern is staring at you, follow that — it is faster and it is what the question was built around.
- Checking a feature that never varies. If every picture is the same size, size cannot be the answer. A feature has to change across the set before it can separate anything.
- A feature that leaves nobody alone. Two white and three black is not an answer: it splits the five into a two and a three, and an odd-one-out needs a one. Keep walking.
- A feature that leaves everybody alone. If all five point different ways, direction has isolated all of them, which isolates none of them. That is your cue to ask the harder version of the question — turned, or reflected?
- Judging a shade from memory. Grey against white looks dark; grey against black looks light. Compare neighbours.
- Starting at symmetry because it sounds clever. It is last on the list because it is last in the papers.
Related
- The complete 11+ question-type guide
- NVR: Shape Codes — where the checklist earns its keep most often
- NVR: Odd One Out — the type both worked examples above are drawn from
- NVR: Series — ask which feature is moving along the row
- NVR: Analogies — name the change, then do it to the third picture
All example questions come from the Brainblox question bank — practise these question types inside 15 arcade 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.