Diagrammatic reasoning

Diagrammatic reasoning questions are designed to assess your logical reasoning ability. They consist of multiple choice questions and are administered under exam conditions. They are strictly timed and a typical test might allow 30 minutes for 20 questions. Most of the aptitude tests that you will face during the job selection process will contain questions of this type. These questions may either be integrated into a test along with verbal and numerical questions or they may be presented as a separate test paper.

The aptitudes measured by questions that use words and numbers can easily be related to real world jobs which invariably require some degree of literacy and numeracy. Questions which use figures and diagrams seem to have very little application in the real-world and yet these types of question appear in most graduate and management aptitude tests. This is because psychologists believe that this type of pure reasoning question is less dependent on your educational and cultural background than either verbal or numerical questions.

If you are told that the test you are going to sit contains diagrammatic reasoning questions then it is a good idea to ask to see a sample of the types of question that it will contain. This is because there are really two distinct types of question that can be referred to as ‘diagrammatic reasoning’ questions.

The first type of question involves a series of figures which appear in a sequence or pattern – these can be thought of as the ‘problem’ figure. You need to analyse this problem figure and determine which of the answer figures best completes it. For example:

1. Which symbol in the Answer Figure best completes the sequence in the Problem Figure ?

In this example, the question figure is rotated clockwise through 90 degrees each time. The answer is therefore option C which represents the last shape rotated through a further 90 degrees.

2. Which of the Answer Figures best fits the missing space in the Question Figure?

In this example, each complete row and column of the question figure contains one line of each type – horizontal, vertical, bottom-left-to-top-right and top-left-to-bottom-right. Option D is the correct answer as when this is used to complete the figure each row and column contains one of each line type.

Another type of question can be used to measure your ability to infer a set of rules from a flowchart or similar diagram and then to apply those rules to new situation. These questions are often found in tests aimed at selecting people who need to work through complex, and often conceptual, problems in an analytical way. These include information technology specialists and high-level management consultants as well as specialists in more complex types of finance.

These types of question are best referred to as 'diagrammatic reasoning’ questions to differentiate them from the more common abstract reasoning questions. In this example, the diagram shows 'inputs' and 'outputs' in the large boxes. The 'operators' or 'processes' are shown in the small boxes. You need to determine what effect each of the 'operators' or 'processes' is having on the 'input' in order to produce the 'output' shown.

|-
|colspan="2"|

colspan="2"|
11)
12)
13)
14)
15)

|-
|A B C D
|A B C D
|A B C D
|A B C D
|A B C D

11	12	13	14	15

In this example, there are two operations separating each input from the output. The first task is to isolate the function of one of these operations and then to use a process of elimination to work out what each operator does.

If we examine the Operator C/E in the diagram above, we can deduce that it cannot reverse the colours of the input because in Path A-C the input and output colours are the same.

Using this piece of information, we can assume that Operator D is reversing input and output colours. Looking at Path D/E, this means that Operator C/E must be reflecting the input in the vertical plane.

Using this piece of information, we can deduce that Operator A is adding the angled line to the input.

Finally, we can deduce that Operator B must be rotating the input 90 degrees clockwise.

Now that we know what effect each of the operators has, we can proceed to answer the questions.

Even though the terms diagrammatic reasoning and abstract reasoning are sometimes used interchangeably by employers when referring to aptitude tests, you need to be clear about which type of questions you can expect. You can then practice the questions to make sure that you are comfortable with each type. This will allow you to spend your time answering the question rather than trying to work out how to answer it.

You can find examples of both types of question at http://www.psychometric-success.com as well as free practice papers to download.