Two rules at once

What a compound item is

Most questions turn on one thing: the figure turns, or moves, or the count goes up. A compound item turns on two at once. The shape rotates and the number of dots changes; the figure moves across the row and its fill alternates. Each rule on its own is one you already know from the lessons above. The difficulty is not either rule; it is noticing that there are two, and holding the first steady while you find the second.

This is where an adaptive sitting separates candidates. Get the single-rule items right and the test moves you up into compound ones inside its twelve minutes, so the last third of a strong sitting is mostly this lesson.

How to think about it

1. Name the first thing that changes across row one. Say it in one word, from the ten: rotation, mirror, movement, size, colour, shape, number, combining, once per row.
2. Check it on row two, then ask what it leaves unexplained. If the rule holds but the cells still differ in a way it does not account for, there is a second rule. Name that one too.
3. Apply both to row three, one at a time. Decide what the missing cell must look like under rule one, then adjust it under rule two. Only then look at the options.
4. Expect a distractor per rule. One option will satisfy the first rule and break the second; another the reverse. The answer satisfies both. If two options look right, you have found only one rule.

The common pairs

Rotation with number (the shape turns while the dots count up), movement with colour (the marker walks across the cells while the fill alternates), size with shape (the figure grows while the shape cycles), and once per row with rotation (each shape appears once per row and also turns). The drill below serves only items the bank marks as carrying two rules, so every question is a chance to practise the second look.

The ten names this lesson refers to are the course’s own vocabulary; the Method’s chapter on conditional rules, where one feature decides another, is the advanced lesson.