Pattern completion · nonverbal reasoning

Pattern completion questions, where the missing piece has to match exactly

A design with a piece cut out of it. The child finds the piece that belongs there, and the trap is that several options are nearly right: the correct colours in the wrong arrangement, the correct shape turned the wrong way. It is the first question type on the NNAT and the one that most rewards looking carefully rather than quickly.

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How the puzzle is built

  • 1A patterned rectangle or square has a section removed, usually a square or a wedge.
  • 2The options are all pieces that could physically fit the hole. Only one continues the pattern correctly.
  • 3Orientation matters. A piece with the right elements rotated a quarter turn is a wrong answer, not a nearly right one.
  • 4The pattern usually continues in two directions at once, so the piece has to line up with what is above it and what is beside it.

The method, in order

Worth saying out loud the first few times. The order matters more than the speed.

  1. 1. Look at what borders the hole, not the whole design

    The edges touching the gap decide the answer. Everything else is context.

  2. 2. Follow one line through the gap

    Pick a stripe or an edge that runs into the hole and say where it must come out. That fixes half the piece immediately.

  3. 3. Now do the same in the other direction

    The piece has to satisfy both the horizontal and the vertical continuation, which usually leaves one option.

  4. 4. Check orientation last

    When two options survive, they are almost always the same piece at different rotations. Compare them against the bordering edge, not against each other.

Where pattern completion questions turn up

NNATone of the four question types, and typically the first a child meets
SOF olympiad papersLogical Reasoning, often as a tiled grid with one tile missing

The four ways children go wrong

These are not guesses. They are what the wrong options in a real question are built from, which is why each one feels reasonable at the time.

Choosing a piece with the right colours in the wrong place

The fix: Match the edges that touch the hole, not the overall colour mix.

Ignoring rotation

The fix: Turn the option in your head and compare a single edge. If that edge does not continue the line, the piece is wrong however familiar it looks.

Solving one direction only

The fix: A piece can continue the horizontal stripe and break the vertical one. Check both before committing.

Looking at the whole design instead of the gap

The fix: The answer is decided entirely by the borders of the hole. Narrowing attention makes these faster, not less accurate.

Questions parents ask

What is a pattern completion question?
A design has a piece missing and you choose the piece that belongs there. It sounds like matching, but the options are built so that several fit the hole physically while only one continues the pattern in both directions.
Which test uses pattern completion?
It is one of the four NNAT question types and is usually the first type a child encounters. Similar tiled-grid items appear in SOF olympiad logical reasoning sections.
Why does my child pick the piece with the right colours?
Because colour is the most visible property and the wrong options exploit that. Colour matching gets you into the right group of options; edge matching is what picks between them. The fix is to look at what touches the hole rather than at the piece as a whole.
How much does orientation matter?
Completely. A piece with exactly the right elements rotated by a quarter turn is simply wrong, and rotated options are the most common distractor at every level. Comparing a single bordering edge is faster and safer than comparing whole pieces.
What age is pattern completion suitable for?
The simplest versions work from kindergarten, which is why the NNAT starts there. Difficulty comes from the pattern continuing in two directions at once and from finer distinctions between options, both of which scale with the level.
How is pattern completion different from a jigsaw?
A jigsaw piece is decided by its shape. Here every option fits the hole, so shape tells you nothing and the pattern has to decide it. Children who approach these as jigsaws tend to answer quickly and wrongly.

Practise the whole test

One skill at a time is how you fix a weakness. A full timed test is how you find out whether it is fixed.

CogAT practice →NNAT practiceOlympiad papers

Other reasoning skills: paper folding, figure matrices, figure classification.