Non Verbal Reasoning : Odd One Out (Type 2)

The Odd One Out question type requires you to identify the shape that does not follow the same rules as the other shapes. In order to solve this question you must review what is consistent across the shapes that are given in the question and decide a rule.

This rule will not be followed by one of the shapes in the given options – which will be your answer.

This type of question requires you to systematically do the following:

1. Establish a rule or characteristics that the shapes follow
2. Identify the shapes that follow the rule
3. Select the shape that does not follow that shape or characteristics

Similar to other rule and pattern based questions there are a few common things that these question types tend to establish rules on. These are:

• Shapes
• Addition of elements
• Taking away of elements
• Number of sides
• Colour
• Sizing
• Duplication
• Reflection
• Rotation

Remember, your focus here is to pinpoint clearly what is the thing that is consistent / happens all the time across the shapes. This can be a shape being added, a colour being changed or a shape being rotated. It is important to remember that rule can be any combination of these things happening, so do not spend your time look for everything.

Look for what is obvious and what is consistent.

It is up to you to identify these things and to think critically about what is happening. Other than critical analysis skills the following skills are tested:

• Being able to recognise a rule or pattern
• Ability to pick out the specific characteristics of the rule or pattern
• Recognising which of the given shapes do not follow the rule or pattern

Although it seems the skills being tested are only a few, the question type really focuses on your ability to evaulate and analyse visual information – which isn’t a simple thing. Although everything is happening on paper so you can logically / step by step recognise the changes it is still vital that you are mentally prepared to explore and question the shapes, variations and changes.

This comes back to your ability to break down visual information, see it as a whole, but also see it in separate parts.

In order to this, you need to be prepared to quickly ask questions about the visual information that is being presented to you – from those questions you can get answers.

What this means is that you take again a logical, but detailed approach to each shape and this will really come out in your thought process for example asking questions around:

• What has changed?
• What has been added or subtracted?
• What has increased or decreased?
• Are there any connections e.g. this happens so this must happen?
• Are there multiple changes happening?
• Which of these shapes do not follow the same pattern?

The skills here are almost the same as those tested in the Like Shapes question type, which is ultimately your ability to look at visual information, break down that visual information and recognise a rule or set of characteristics.

From there you will then be able to identify the shape that does not follow this. As you can tell, the answer comes at the end, but without a thorough thought process you can easily get confused about what you are looking at.

What does the Odd One Out question type look like?

As you can see from the Gaggle example below, the Odd One Out question type is in the following format:

• Instructions with an example of an answered question
• Set of questions
• Each question has up to 5 shapes
• Each shape has been assigned a letter which you have to select as your answer
• 1 mark per question

How do I answer this question?

As a quick introduction, and to repeat what I have been saying through this post, you need to have worked on your shape transformation and pattern skills. What this means for you is to have a strong approach which will allow you to look at visual information and break that information down.

This is a key skill because if you are not able to evaluate or analyse information, you will not be able to pick out the overall rule or characteristic from that connects them altogether.

This is even more important when questions get more harder and complex. They become more difficult because there may be more characteristics to look out, which means you need to be more thorough and detailed to capture all of this information.

After all of that you recognise which shape does not contain those characteristics.

This does sound like a very tough thing to do, but as you will see in the working example, it all really boils down to 3 things:

1. Always asking questions about the big things – this will get your mind thinking
2. Always asking questions about the little things – this will get you noticing the little things
3. Identifying the characteristics that are shared across all the shapes

As with any of the Non Verbal Reasoning question types, there is a process we can follow that will get us to the answer. For the Odd One Out question type it is as follows:

1. View all the shapes, it is necessary that you can get an overall view of the shapes as they are
2. Look at Shape A (usually they will be listed in alphabetical order)
3. Identify the characteristics of Shape A – to do this you can ask the following questions:
   1. Is there more than one shape?
   2. Has the shape or shapes rotated?
   3. Has the shape or shapes flipped?
   4. Has the shape or shapes changed in colour or anything else?
   5. Are the shapes small or big?
   6. Are there more than one shape?
4. After you have identified the characteristics for Shape A, do the same for the remaining Shapes
5. Recognise which Shapes follow a specific rule or set of rules
6. Select the Shape that does not share the same characteristic or rules

Working Example

Question 1

Lets apply the process above to the Working Example and from there we can select our answer.

First of all lets get an overall view of Question 1.

Before we start, I want to make sure we know what our aim is here, which is to identify which of the Shapes in the question is the Odd One Out. To identify this we want to find the characteristics / rules that all the Shapes share and follow, and then pick out the Shape that does not share these characteristics.

To start, we want to, get a quick glance at all the shapes. This is to get a broad view of the question for now, we can start to drill down in the later steps, but for now and to keep time in mind we will just get a quick view.

Now, on this first look we can see that there are 5 options, with a range of different shapes, from circles, triangles and squares. There are also shapes within these shapes. This is enough to at least tell us that our shapes need to have shapes within them.

We can begin to look at Shape A now. It is important to take a step by step approach to make sure we build out characteristics and can double-check as we go along, whether those characteristics are present in the other Shapes. If they are not – then that Shape is our answer because we are looking for the Odd One Out.

So going back to Shape A, it is a Circle with a Circle inside and if you look closer, the circle inside is black, so from here we can establish 3 initial characteristics:

1. The main Shape has no colour but has a border
2. The main Shape must have a Shape which is a smaller version of the main Shape, inside it (we got this already when taking a broad view)
3. The inside Shape must be coloured

Remember, we say that these are the characteristics we start off with because we haven’t checked, or tested these against the other Shapes.

Looking at Shape B, it is a hexagonal shape with a hexagon inside it. This confirms characteristic 1 and 2 which is:

1. The main Shape has a border
2. The Shape must have a Shape that is a smaller version of the main Shape inside it

However, the hexagon inside Shape B is not coloured, instead it just has a border.

What we need to do now is consider this new characteristic because we have only checked 2 Shapes. We need to be completely sure this new characteristic (that the inside shape has no colour but a border) is either consistent or not consistent across all other Shapes – which will tell us whether its the Odd One Out.

So for now we will consider it and add it to our list so far:

1. The main Shape has no colour but has a border
2. The main Shape must have a Shape which is a smaller version of the main Shape, inside it (we got this already when taking a broad view)
3. The inside Shape may be coloured
4. The inside may have no colour but have a border

NOTE: As you can see we have added a fourth characteristic and have said for characteristics 3 and 4 that they may be coloured or bordered. The reason why we did this is because we have only looked at 2 shapes, found slightly different characteristics and need to find out which characteristics are shared or not shared across the remaining Shapes. This will then point us to the Odd One Out – which is our answer.

Now looking at Shape C it is a bordered square with a smaller COLOURED square inside it. Already it meets characteristics 1, 2 and 3 from our list but most importantly begins to discount characteristic 4.

But lets not rush ahead, we still have Shapes D and E left.

Looking at Shape D it is a bordered triangle with a smaller BORDERED, NON COLOURED triangle inside of it.

Lets not get confused here, this is why it is so important to go through all of the Shapes before coming to a decision.

What we can say so far is that:

1. The main Shape has a border
2. The main Shape has a smaller inner shape which is the same as the main Shape
3. 2 Shapes have coloured inner shapes
4. 2 Shapes have non-coloured inner shapes with a border

Now because we are looking for 1 Odd One Out answer, but the characteristics / rules mentioned are shared by 2 Shapes each, we have to accept for now that those are potential rules to follow and look at Shape E to clear up any confusion.

Shape E has a bordered circle with a coloured square inside of it.

This Shape is completely different to the 4 shapes before it (Shapes A to D).

The most consistent characteristic / rule that it doesn’t follow, which all the others follow is the main Shape has the same inner Shape.

Now, although the inner Shape for Shape E is coloured (which is a characteristic / rule) it is important to remember that 3 out of 5 shapes have a coloured inner shape, and 2 out of 5 have a bordered inner shape.

The question is asking us to find 1 Odd One Out Shape – so this Shape must be completely different to the other 4 shapes.

Looking at this question so far 2 Shapes have the bordered inner shape with no colour that can’t be the answer.

But there is only 1 Shape which has a different inner shape to the main shape, and that is Shape E.

So the answer must be : Shape E

That was a lot and can become confusing so lets quickly recap how we got to our answer:

1. Took a broad view of all the Shapes
2. Identified characteristics / rules per Shape and started building out a list
3. Changed our list as we looked at more Shapes and began to understand which ones were consistent and which ones were not
4. Identified characteristics / rules that occurred in more than 1 Shape
5. Accepted that all characteristics / rules do not need to be present but need to be in more than 1 shape (this is important because the question is asking us to find the Odd One Out, so there must only be one different Shape)
6. Identified the Shape that did not follow a characteristic / rule that all other Shapes followed and instead was the only Shape which had a different characteristic / rule

What if I can’t work out the Odd One Out?

Question types like this, where it is so open-ended and up to you to figure out in whatever way you can, do become confusing very quickly. This means it is easy to get frustrated when you can’t seem to understand the visual information being given to you. In this situation it is so important that you have a logical, step by step approach to help you get through the confusion.

In any case, if you are struggling try to do the following:

1. Always take a step back, look at all the Shapes
2. Break down the information one by one, don’t overwhelm yourself trying to look at everything together
3. Go through each Shape one by one, building out your list of characteristics, do not stop half way through, always start at Shape A and finish at Shape E
4. Test and re-test each Shape against your list, and give it a thumbs up if it sticks, thumbs down if it doesn’t or a middle thumbs if it meets some but does not meet others
5. Always look for the Shape that is different to the rest
6. Remember, if a characteristic is shared by more than one shape then it cannot be the Odd One Out unless it has another characteristic that is not shared by the other 4 shapes
7. Look for a Shape with a characteristic that other Shapes do not have for example if 4 Shapes are black and 1 Shape is red then that is your Odd One Out
8. If you are struggling between 2 or 3 potential answers, select the answer which is the MOST different