Apply a repeated visual change to select the next figure.
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.
Practise it now
Scrub the timeline to feel what the pattern is doing, then drag the frame that comes next into the empty slot.
Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.
A worked example
One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.
Reading a row of figures
Work along the row and find the one change that happens every time.
Only where the dot sits round the circle changes along this row, and it changes by one place clockwise round the circle each time.
a dot at the top of the circle
a dot at the lower left of the circle
a dot at the left of the circle
a dot at the upper left of the circle
Answer: a dot at the upper left of the circle
How you get there
Along the row the figures go a dot at the bottom of the circle, then a dot at the lower left of the circle, then a dot at the left of the circle. The only change is one place clockwise round the circle every time, so carrying that change on from a dot at the left of the circle gives a dot at the upper left of the circle.
Why the other answers tempt
Check which way the row is going. Going the wrong way along the row is the commonest slip.
If they are stuck, say this
Work out both how much the figures change by and which way the change goes, because some of the options are close but not right.
Scrub the timeline to feel what the pattern is doing, then drag the frame that comes next into the empty slot.
Hard sequences run two rules at the same time, so you have to track them separately. Here the arrows turn 45° further every frame (0°, 45°, 90°, 135°…) and the number of arrows climbs by one every frame (1, 2, 3, 4…). Frame five must obey both: five arrows, turned to 180°.
What to say if they get stuck
Drag the handle slowly. Watch the arrows turn - how far do they swing between one frame and the next?
Now stop watching the turn and count the arrows instead. Something else is growing.
Two rules run at once: the turn adds 45° each frame, and one more arrow joins each time.
The 11+ does not test these skills in isolation, and practising one in the wrong order wastes the practice. These are the skills the curriculum map connects this one to.
How complete a visual series differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: apply a repeated visual change to select the next figure, and it stops where one repeated rule only.
Questions parents ask about complete a visual series
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Apply a repeated visual change to select the next figure. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the pattern strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
Check which way the row is going. Going the wrong way along the row is the commonest slip. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Work out both how much the figures change by and which way the change goes, because some of the options are close but not right.
The skill map draws the line here: One repeated rule only. A question past that line is testing a different named non-verbal reasoning skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The skill map connects it to track object count. A visual series may compose a count-change rule. That skill has its own page here.
Use Sequence Scrubber, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to complete a visual series, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
Non-verbal reasoning is the paper families most often leave until last
A free diagnostic covers matrices, series, odd one out, rotation, reflection and the 3D questions, and shows where the time is worth spending.
