Non-verbal Reasoning · Code Breaking
The Decoder
Every figure has a two-letter code. Work out what each letter is telling you.
Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. What you may do with it, in full.
Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.
Why this works
A code system gives each POSITION one job. Here the first letter always reports the shape (R = circle, B = square, P = triangle) and the second always reports the filling (X = solid, Y = striped, Z = outline). How many copies there are is a decoy - it never touches the code. The way to crack any code is to hunt for two examples that differ in exactly one letter: whatever changed about the picture is what that position encodes.
Helping a child through The Decoder
It runs in 2 steps
- 1. Crack the code. Tap the letters. Watch which figures light up - that tells you what each letter means.
- 2. Encode it. Now write the code for the new figure. Drag letters into the slots.
Hints, least revealing first
- Tap a letter under a figure. Everything that shares its secret lights up.
- Find two figures whose codes differ by only ONE letter, then spot the one thing that changed about them.
- The first letter never changes when only the filling changes. So what must the first letter be about?
When they finish it: “Code cracked!”
2 11+ skills this exercise practises
Each of these has its own page, with a worked example on it. 1 of the 2 names the mistake that skill attracts.
- Track fill and line styleTrack shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart.
- Compare visual attributesCompare shape, position, angle, number, size, or shading across figures.
You can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes
Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.
- Embed it
- Put the exercise inside your own page with the code above. It stays playable, and it keeps working when we improve the engine behind it.
- Print it
- Print the page, or print the exercise off the screen, and hand out the copies. No limit on how many.
- Use it in class
- One child or a full set, in a school, in a tutoring session, in a homework club, or at the kitchen table.
- Put it in something you charge for
- A paid course, a paid tutoring session, a paid workbook, a members-only site. You owe us no fee and you do not need to ask.
- Reuse it in your own writing
- Quote it, rewrite it, translate it, cut it up, or build something different on top of it. Treat the wording, the worked examples and the question ideas as yours to work with.
The one thing we ask is a link back to the page you took it from, so a reader can find the live, playable version and the rest of the 11+ skills next to it. That is a request, not a condition: nothing above depends on it.
This covers the interactive exercises and the teaching notes on these 11+ pages. It does not cover the Trace Learn name or logo, and it does not let you present your version as something Trace Learn published.
Embed this exercise
Paste this into your own page and the exercise runs there, playable, for your readers or your students. It is 900 pixels tall by default and as wide as the column you put it in; change the height if your layout wants a different one.
The embedded copy has no header, no footer and no sign-up prompt. It records nothing about the child using it, on your page just as on ours.
One exercise is a start, not a plan
A free diagnostic across all four subjects shows which non-verbal reasoning skills to practise next, and in what order.