Non Verbal Reasoning – Missing Sequence (Type 5)

The missing sequence question type requires you to study a sequence of shapes and the changes that are happening in each step. For one of the steps there will be a gap. What you need to do is to understand the order and way the changes are happening and from there, select the right answer from the options given to you.

One of the basic things to always know is that sequence based questions are always about order and change. What this essentially means is that you need to find out, by studying the sequence the following:

1. In what ways are the shapes changing?
2. When are they changing?
3. What order are they changing?

By tackling these 2 questions first you can then build a picture of how things should change moving forward – this pattern or set of rules that you create then make it easier to select the answer.

This is because, based on where in the sequence the gap is, you can work out what should change, what it looks like in the step before the gap, and how it should change. Very similar to other non verbal reasoning question types like Code Breaker this is all about using existing information to predict and determine future information.

In order to be able to understand this information the key skill you need to apply is the ability to analyse. Now to do analysis you can start by reviewing the existing sequence of information, breaking it down back into individual parts and forming rules or a pattern from it.

Once you know where, when and how each individual part changes (which become your rules) you can then build it back up to create the full picture – you do this by putting the parts together, following the order of how things have been in the sequence so far, to then decide what they should be at the point you have to fill in the gap.

Just like with any question type, there are a number of things that are being tested here and these things ultimately come together to give you the confidence and the ability to answer these questions, these are:

• Ability to review and understand order of progression, how things move forward and change
• Ability to identify how things change in a systematic way
• Being able to recognise this system and correctly predict the next steps
• Ability to quickly create rules to help you determine what happens next for example part A in Shape A must move 90deg at every single step
• Ability to look at information and break it down to understand the key rules
• Ability to take these rules you have identified and re-apply them to create a new piece of information (fill in the gap)
• Being able to manage multiple changes at once
• Ability to anticipate what something should look like at any point in the sequence
• Follow a logical, step by step approach to taking in visual information

To summarise, and as mentioned already, the key thing you need to focus on is how you mentally take in and break down information.

This is a skill that is tested across multiple question types. You will come across different types of visual and textual information, for you to understand you need to be able to take in that information. For you to re-apply or predict future outcomes you need to be able to understand what has already happened and build your own rules.

Then when it comes down to filling a gap in the sequence, all you have to do is just study the order of change – how are things changing, what steps are they following?

But if you do not know what is changing or what needs to change then you are stuck – so as always, the hard work is breaking down information in a way that you can identify the details e.g. the parts and things that change.

What does the Missing Sequence Question Type Look Like?

As you can tell from the CGP and additional examples below, the missing sequence / complete the sequence quesetion type is in the following format:

• General instructions with an example
• A sequence of 5 or 6
• 1 part of the sequence will be missing this can be in the beginning, middle or end
• A separate section with options to select your answer from e.g. options A to E
• 1 mark per question

How do I complete the sequence?

To avoid repetition, but to emphasise how important it is, just remember that the missing sequence question type is all about how you breakdown information into its individual parts and then track how those individual parts change as you go through the sequence.

Think of it as building rules so in Position 1 Part A should do this, then in Position 2 Part A should do that then in Position 3 it should do this.

Once you have got an idea or built out rules, you know exactly that the overall shape and its parts should be doing at any point in time. This is then where you look at the gap in the sequence, and work out what the shape and its individual parts should be doing at that time in the sequence – all based on your rules.

Remember, everything in a sequence follows a structure and an order, once you work out what that order and structure is, you can apply it however you want.

Now as always with these question types there is a process that you can follow to efficiently get you to your answer. Looking at the examples above (simple and complex) there is only one main difference.

The simple question requires you to track 1 or 2 parts that are changing, whilst the complex question requires you to keep track of 2 or more parts that are changing (with the possibility that these things may change at different times).

Other than that, the following process stays the same. So lets go into it:

1. Look at the overall shape in position 1 of the sequence (right now you just want to understand the shape)
2. Identify each individual part of the shape (now you want to look at the detail)
3. Once you have identified each part of the shape in position 1 look at the shape in other available positions
4. Ask yourself the following:
   1. What is not changing?
   2. What is changing?
   3. How is it changing?
5. Now you know which of the parts are changing and how they are changing, start mentally thinking of a rule that the part or parts should follow e.g. Part A always increases in size
6. Look at the gap in the sequence you need to fill, by looking at your rules and the shapes before and after the gap, determine how that shape and its parts should look
7. Once you have come to an answer, double check it follows the rules and makes sense in the sequence

Working Example

To demonstrate how the process above works, lets now apply it to once of the questions above. I will take the simple example so it does not become confusing, but remember the only difference between simple and complex is:

1. There are more parts and changes to track in complex questions
2. Things may change at different times in complex questions because of so many extra parts but there is always a rule behind this

Lets have another quick look before I start:

First of all I want to get an overall idea of the shape I am dealing with. To do this I will look at the Shape in Position 1 of the sequence. As you can tell it is a star shape.

Moving on, I want to now look a bit deeper to identify the different parts of this star shape. Now when I mean different, I mean parts, qualities or characteristics that are different from the original shape.

In the question you can see that the star in Position 1 has 1 triangle coloured, whilst the rest of the star is plain. So now I know in this question there are 2 distinct parts:

1. The original star shape
2. The coloured triangle part of the star

I have got as much information as I can out of the shape in position 1. Now I am going to look at the other positions (2 and 3) to see if I can notice anything that happens to either the whole thing or each individual part. So let me note it down:

1. In positions 2 and 3 the star stays the same
2. In positions 2 and 3, each time, the coloured part of the star is moving clockwise, from one triangle to the next

So I can now confirm:

1. The star itself does not change
2. The coloured triangle part does change
3. It changes in a clockwise fashion, colouring 1 triangle at a time, leaving the previous one plain

I am now ready to build out my rules, they are:

1. The star shape must stay the same
2. Only one triangle arm of the star must be coloured
3. In each step in the sequence the triangle must move forward by 1, clockwise
4. The previous triangle arm must return to plain

The gap in the sequence is in position 4:

Positions 3 and 5 both have shapes. The stars are the same, but in position 3 the coloured triangle arm is on the bottom right, whilst in position 5 it is on the middle left.

So to work out my answer I just need to apply my rule to position 3 by:

1. The star shape stays the same
2. The triangle coloured arm must move forward by 1, so if in position 3 its on the bottom right arm, for position 4 (the gap) it must be on the bottom left arm
3. The previous coloured triangle arm (bottom right) must go back to being plain so that only one arm is coloured in each part of the sequence

So when looking at my answer options I will look for the following criteria:

1. A star shape which is the same
2. A star shape with the bottom left arm coloured only

When applying this I can see that B is the only option which fulfills this criteria.

ANSWER : B

What if I can’t complete the sequence?

As with all question types this kind of question can become confusing very quickly, especially if you miss out or do not track the shapes that you should be tracking. Now, in the situation where you are struggling to find an answer try the following:

• Be as detailed as possible, highlight every single shape you see and what its doing at each part of the sequence
• Remember, you are looking to see what changes, how it changes and when it changes – always think of these 3 things when looking at your shapes
• You need to be looking at 2 things, the overall shape and the parts that make up the shapes
• If you are struggling to keep a mental note, write it down on your question sheet, or better, start drawing out your options
• If you are 50/50 about your answer, think does it make sense in the order of the sequence
• Always make rules, do not jump ahead, make rules that you can stick to and which stay in the line with the order and structure of the sequence
• Do not overthink, everything is there on paper, there are no trick questions – say and follow what you see
• Remember, if you have to track more than 1 part, than make sure it makes sense at the point you are filling the gap in, and the parts are doing what they should be
• Retrace your steps, build the picture one part at a time
• You are expected to be detailed here, so be very specific about each part, break the overall shape down, and then build it back up

Finally, if you really are struggling and you have to take a guess, do not worry, these things happen and its okay. What you want your guess to be is informed. What that means is that you have taken and thought through enough information as possible to make a decision. So always ask yourself with your guess:

• Does it make sense if i look back over the sequence and its order?
• Does it follow some pattern or rule?
• If I imagined what would happen next to the shape and its part would I imagine this answer?
• Are there any answer options that I can ignore because they do not make sense at all or do not follow rules that I have identified?

With guesses you will not be 100% sure, but what you want to be is as confident as possible, and by asking these questions you can try build your confidence before moving on. Sometimes the easiest place to start at is by getting rid of the answer options which you are 100% sure cannot be the answer.

This leaves you with a few answers to choose from, and ask further questions about, which will increase the possibility of you getting the answer right.