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.
Pick one. Nothing is scored and nothing is saved — the guess is the point.
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.
Full access
Counting and arithmetic: the rest of this chapter is part of full access
You have read the lead-in. The tactics, the worked questions, the discrimination quiz, the cheat sheet and the reference card sit behind one payment, together with all eight chapters, their drills and mastery checks, a second form of every practice test, and the review queue.
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The course
This chapter is a lesson in the Matrigma Prep Course
The course carries the same eight chapters as ten pattern lessons, each with a guided think-through, a drill of unseen questions and a quiz, plus the full practice tests and your readiness report. Enrolling is free; full access opens the paid lessons.
Where to practise
The drill serves ten counting and arithmetic questions you have not seen, easiest first, with the explanation after every answer. The mastery check is six questions — two easy, two medium, two hard — at sixty seconds each, with no tactic on screen and no explanations until the end.