Track shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart.
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
Every figure has a two-letter code. Work out what each letter is telling you.
This exercise practises track fill and line style alongside its own main skill, Code Breaking.
It covers most of this skill rather than all of it.
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.
Following the shading
Look at how the shading changes, and leave everything else alone.
Nothing here changes shape or moves. The shading goes two steps darker.
a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it → a dark grey shield with 4 dots under it, so a pale grey shield with 3 dots under it → ?
a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it
a white shield with 1 dot under it
a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it
a white shield with 4 dots under it
Answer: a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it
How you get there
The only thing that changes between the first two figures is the shading: a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it becomes a dark grey shield with 4 dots under it, so the change is two steps darker. Making the same change to a pale grey shield with 3 dots under it gives a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it.
Why the other answers tempt
A figure that changed shape or number instead of shading has not followed the rule, however different it looks.
If they are stuck, say this
Count the steps along the shading from white to dark grey, then move the third figure by the same number of steps.
Every figure has a two-letter code. Work out what each letter is telling you.
This engine’s own main skill is Code Breaking. It practises track fill and line style alongside it, and covers most of it rather than all.
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.
Step 1. Crack the code. Tap the letters. Watch which figures light up - that tells you what each letter means.
Step 2. Encode it. Now write the code for the new figure. Drag letters into the slots.
What to say if they get stuck
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?
Build the missing piece. Two rules are hiding in this grid - one runs across, one runs down.
This engine’s own main skill is Matrix Reasoning. It practises track fill and line style alongside it.
A matrix hides one rule per direction. Across the rows, the shape stays the same - star, moon, diamond. Down the columns, the count climbs 1, 2, 3 and the fill goes outline, striped, solid. The missing cell sits where row 3 meets column 3, so it must obey both at once: three solid diamonds.
What to say if they get stuck
Read one row at a time, left to right. What never changes along a row?
Now read one column at a time, top to bottom. Two things change as you move across the columns.
Row 3 is the diamond row. Column 3 always holds three shapes, filled in solid.
Treats a fill change as a shape or position change.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on track fill and line style, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
How track fill and line style 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: track shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart, and it stops where do not infer a rotation from fill alone.
Questions parents ask about track fill and line style
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.
Track shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the attribute strand, and this page carries 2 interactive exercises that practise it.
There is a specific mistake recorded against this skill: treats a fill change as a shape or position change. 11+ papers are written to offer exactly that answer, so a child can be confident and still lose the mark. When it keeps happening, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Count the steps along the shading from white to dark grey, then move the third figure by the same number of steps.
The skill map draws the line here: Do not infer a rotation from fill alone. 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 attribute strand holds 3 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to track fill and line style are track object count and track pointing direction. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use The Decoder and Matrix Machine, embedded on this page. They are the exercises the skill map attaches to track fill and line style, they run in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. Each also has its own link, so you can send one to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
One wrong answer is a slip, the same wrong answer every time is a habit
A free diagnostic looks at which mistakes repeat across all four subjects, not just whether track fill and line style was right on the day.
