What you see: the count goes up, down, or adds up. Behind it: progression or arithmetic on number.
Start here — one guess
Look at this for 20 seconds. What goes in the empty cell?
The tell: don't look at the shapes — count them. When the number of marks in each cell follows a sum or a running total, you're in arithmetic.
The family in one sentence
Counting & arithmetic: a number — usually a count of marks — follows an arithmetic rule across the cells.
The shapes are almost a decoy. What matters is how many. The count in the third cell is the first two added or subtracted, or a row total stays the same. Count first; the rule is in the numbers.
The count in the third cell equals the first two added together — read the numbers, not the shapes.
What arithmetic looks like
- The cells hold a countable feature — dots, lines, sides, small shapes.
- The count changes by a rule you can write as a sum.
- The shapes themselves may differ; the number is what carries the pattern.
The patterns differ by which arithmetic rule the count follows:
- Row addition — count of cell 3 = count of cell 1 + count of cell 2.
- Row subtraction — count of cell 3 = count of cell 1 − count of cell 2.
- Multiplication — count of cell 3 = count of cell 1 × count of cell 2.
- Conservation — every row (or column) holds the same total.
- Per-category count — count each colour or shape separately; each follows its own rule.