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Cognitive Skills & Practice

Five kinds of reasoning, what each one actually involves, and how to get better at it. Every domain below has a free drill you can start immediately.

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Five domains

The 30-question assessment scores each separately, so you see a shape rather than one number.

Eight drills

Brain Gym practises the same kinds of reasoning, free and without an account.

One next step

Each domain below links straight into the drill that uses it.

Not sure where to start?

Four questions about what you find interesting or irritating. This is a preference sort, not a test — there are no right answers and nothing is scored.

Verbal Reasoning

verbal

Knowing a word is not the same as knowing what it is doing in a sentence.

Holding the relationship between words: what is similar, what is opposite, what belongs together, and what a phrase implies beyond its literal content.

Where it shows up

  • Following an argument you disagree with, without losing the thread
  • Spotting the difference between two words that look interchangeable
  • Writing something once and being understood

How to practise it

  • When you meet an unfamiliar word, guess from context first, then check — the guess is the exercise
  • Say the relationship out loud before choosing: "a chisel is what a sculptor uses" makes analogies mechanical rather than intuitive
  • Read one thing a week written by someone who disagrees with you

Where people go wrong

  • Picking the word you know best rather than the one that fits — familiarity feels like correctness
  • Answering an analogy from the second pair alone, without checking the relationship holds for the first
  • Treating a near-synonym as an opposite because it sits at the wrong end of a different scale

Try one now

1 of 5

Which word is closest in meaning to METICULOUS?

Worked example

CANDLE is to WAX as TYRE is to ___

  • Road
  • Rubber(correct answer)
  • Car
  • Round
  1. 1Name the relationship in words first: a candle is MADE OF wax.
  2. 2Apply that exact rule, not a looser one: a tyre is made of rubber.
  3. 3Check the rejects against the same rule — a tyre is not made of road, not made of car, and Round is a property, not a material.

The trap: Most people reach for Road, because candles and tyres both suggest a setting. But the pair is not about setting — the analogy has to survive being stated as a rule.

Take away: State the relationship as a sentence before looking at the options. An analogy you cannot phrase is one you are answering by association.

Word LinksSynonyms, opposites, analogies and odd-one-outWord ForgeAnagrams, hidden words, compound links and missing vowels

Logical Reasoning

logical

Finding the rule is the whole task — applying it is arithmetic.

Inferring the rule behind a pattern, then extending it. Includes deduction from stated facts, where the answer follows necessarily rather than plausibly.

Where it shows up

  • Working out why a process keeps failing at the same step
  • Noticing that two things you were told cannot both be true
  • Predicting what happens next from what has happened so far

How to practise it

  • Name the rule in words before you answer — a rule you cannot say is one you have not found
  • When a sequence has two plausible rules, look for the one that explains every term, not most of them
  • With deduction, write what must follow before looking at the options

Where people go wrong

  • Settling for a rule that explains three terms out of four
  • Reading "some" as "all" — the commonest error in set logic, and the one that feels most reasonable
  • Continuing an obvious pattern past the point where it stopped applying

Try one now

1 of 5

Ann finished before Bo. Cy finished after Bo but before Di. Who finished first?

Worked example

What comes next: 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, ___?

  • 25
  • 27
  • 29(correct answer)
  • 32
  1. 1Write the gaps underneath: 1, 3, 4, 7. They grow unevenly, so no fixed step will work.
  2. 2Those gaps are the sequence itself one place back — the signature of each term being the sum of the two before it.
  3. 3Test the rule backwards before trusting it: 3 + 4 = 7, 4 + 7 = 11 and 7 + 11 = 18, all hold. So 11 + 18 = 29.

The trap: 25 comes from assuming the gap is fixed at 7, which fits the last step and nothing before it. A rule confirmed on one step is not a rule.

Take away: Compute the gaps first, and confirm a candidate rule against every earlier step, not just the most recent one.

Pattern SprintNumber and letter sequences across six rule typesDeductionOrdering, elimination and set logic

Quantitative Reasoning

quantitative

Most number problems are won by deciding what to compute, not by computing it.

Working with proportion, rate and change — including estimating well enough to know which answers are not worth checking.

Where it shows up

  • Telling whether a discount is actually a discount
  • Sanity-checking a figure before you act on it
  • Splitting a bill, a budget or a timeline without a spreadsheet

How to practise it

  • Estimate first, always. A rough answer tells you which options to ignore
  • Work from 10%: it is one shift of the decimal point, and every other percentage is built from it
  • For two successive changes, remember the second applies to the new value — the percentages never simply add

Where people go wrong

  • Adding two percentage changes together — a 20% rise then a 20% fall does not return you to the start
  • Computing precisely when the question only asks which option is nearest
  • Losing the units: a rate per hour and a total for two hours are different numbers

Try one now

1 of 5

Roughly what is 19% of 402?

Worked example

A jacket is reduced by 20%, then the sale price is reduced by a further 25%. What is the total discount?

  • 40%(correct answer)
  • 45%
  • 35%
  • 50%
  1. 1Give the unknown a friendly value: start from 100.
  2. 2Apply the cuts in order — 20% off leaves 80; 25% off 80 removes 20, leaving 60.
  3. 3Compare with the start, not with the middle: 100 down to 60 is a 40% total discount.

The trap: 45% is the answer you get by adding the two percentages. It is wrong because the second cut applies to the already-reduced price, not the original.

Take away: Substitute 100 and walk the steps in order. Percentages measured against different bases can never be added, and starting from 100 turns a stacked-percentage question into plain arithmetic.

Number CrunchPercentages, fractions, ratios, rates and successive changeEstimationApproximation under time pressure

Visual-Spatial Reasoning

spatial

Turning a shape in your head is a skill, and it is trainable.

Mentally rotating, reflecting and completing figures — holding a shape steady while you change your view of it.

Where it shows up

  • Reading a map facing the wrong way
  • Knowing whether the furniture fits before you move it
  • Following an assembly diagram without turning the page

How to practise it

  • Track one point — the tip of the arrow — rather than the whole shape
  • Say the transformation out loud: "quarter turn clockwise" beats picturing it vaguely
  • For reflections, check which axis is preserved; a diagonal mirror preserves neither

Where people go wrong

  • Rotating the paper instead of the shape — it works until the option list rotates with it
  • Confusing a rotation with a reflection; a mirrored shape can never be rotated into place
  • Watching the whole figure at once rather than tracking a single reference point

Try one now

1 of 6

An arrow points north-east. You rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. It now points:

Worked example

A capital letter R is rotated 180 degrees, then reflected in a vertical mirror. Which single transformation gives the same result?

  • A reflection in a horizontal mirror(correct answer)
  • A 90-degree rotation
  • No change at all
  • A reflection in a vertical mirror
  1. 1Take the operations one at a time rather than imagining the end state — rotating 180 degrees turns the R upside down and back to front.
  2. 2Now mirror that vertically: the left-right flip is undone, and the top-to-bottom flip survives.
  3. 3Flipped top-to-bottom and nothing else is precisely what a horizontal mirror does.

The trap: No change at all is tempting because two operations feel like they should undo each other. They only undo each other when they are the same operation.

Take away: Apply transformations one at a time and track what each one changed. Composing them in your head in a single leap is where the errors come from.

RotationMental rotation, reflection and matrix completion

Working Memory

memory

Not how much you remember — how much you can hold while doing something else with it.

Keeping information available and manipulating it at the same time: reversing a list, sorting it, or combining parts of it while it is still in mind.

Where it shows up

  • Following directions past the second turn
  • Doing mental arithmetic without losing the running total
  • Holding a question in mind while someone finishes a different point

How to practise it

  • Chunk: a seven-digit string is easier as three groups than seven items
  • Rehearse in a fixed order — rows left to right, or oldest to newest — so recall has a route to follow
  • Practise manipulating, not just holding: reverse the list rather than repeating it

Where people go wrong

  • Rehearsing the list so hard you forget what you were asked to do with it
  • Reading the sequence rather than holding it — if it is still on screen, you have not practised recall
  • Starting the manipulation before the whole list is in: reversing four of five items reliably fails

Try one now

1 of 5

Which comes immediately before BLACK?

Worked example

You are shown 7 4 1 9 3 for a few seconds, then the digits are hidden. What is the sum of the first and last digits?

  • 10(correct answer)
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  1. 1While the digits are visible, group them: 74 and 193 are two chunks, not five items, and two chunks survive a distraction that five will not.
  2. 2Note the ends deliberately as you read — first 7, last 3 — because end positions are what these questions ask about most often.
  3. 3Once hidden, the arithmetic is trivial: 7 + 3 = 10.

The trap: 12 is the common wrong answer: it adds 9 and 3, the last two digits, which is what surfaces when the digits were read but never encoded and only the tail is still available.

Take away: Encode during the exposure, not after it. Chunking into twos and threes is what makes a span longer; rereading passively is not.

Recall GridDigit span, sequencing, paired associates and spatial span
Guided sessions

Short routines, in an order that means something

Each set has a purpose and a sequence. The order is the point — switching between kinds of thinking is harder than any one of them, and that difficulty is the exercise.

Ten-minute warm-up

10 min

Touch every kind of reasoning once, without committing to a long session.

  1. Pattern Sprint
  2. Number Crunch
  3. Word Links

Pattern first: finding a rule wakes you up faster than recalling a word does.

Task switching

15 min

Practise moving between kinds of thinking, which is harder than any one of them.

  1. Word Links
  2. Rotation
  3. Number Crunch
  4. Recall Grid

Deliberately alternates verbal and non-verbal — the cost of switching is the exercise.

Under pressure

12 min

Work at speed, where the instinct is to compute rather than choose what to compute.

  1. Estimation
  2. Number Crunch
  3. Pattern Sprint

Estimation first sets the habit of sizing an answer before reaching for exact arithmetic.

Holding and manipulating

12 min

Keep information available while doing something else with it.

  1. Recall Grid
  2. Deduction
  3. Recall Grid

Memory, then deduction, then memory again — the middle drill is the interference.

Language deep-dive

15 min

Relationships between words, from recognition through to construction.

  1. Word Links
  2. Word Forge
  3. Deduction

Ends on deduction because argument structure is where vocabulary becomes reasoning.

Starting from zero

Four weeks, one change at a time

A habit-forming schedule, not a training programme. It makes no claim about your score — only that each week is harder than the last in a stated way.

  1. Build the habit, not the score

    8 min a day

    One drill a day on Easy, any domain you like. Finish the daily set twice this week.

    Nothing is harder yet. The only goal is that practising becomes something you did, not something you meant to do.

  2. Cover every domain

    10 min a day

    Keep Easy, but rotate: no domain skipped two days running. Add the ten-minute warm-up twice.

    Breadth before depth. Rotating stops you practising only the domain that already feels good.

  3. Move to Medium, and mix within a session

    12 min a day

    Medium on your two strongest domains, Easy elsewhere. Run the task-switching routine twice.

    Difficulty rises where you are steady, so the harder items land somewhere they can be handled.

  4. Push one domain to Hard

    12 min a day

    Pick the domain you have practised most and take it to Hard. Everything else stays Medium.

    One domain at Hard is enough. Raising everything at once means every session feels like failing.

A short set, every day

One item per domain, the same set for everyone today. It takes a few minutes and keeps every domain in rotation rather than only the ones you enjoy.

Sixty-second sprint

Answer as many as you can in one minute. No explanations until the end — this one is about speed, and speed is where you notice which decisions you make automatically.

Covers: Verbal Reasoning · Logical Reasoning · Quantitative Reasoning · Visual-Spatial Reasoning

Today's set

Same five items for everyone today.

Practice is free. So is the assessment.

Every drill on this page is free with no account. The 30-question assessment is free to take, and unlocking your full report — score estimate, indicative percentile, five-domain breakdown and a printable copy — is a one-time $1.99. No subscription, and nothing is charged before you finish.

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Before you start

Questions people ask first

Will practising here raise my IQ score?

No, and anyone promising that is selling something. Practice makes you faster and more accurate at these specific task types, which is genuinely useful — but getting better at a format is not the same as a change in general ability, and this site will not claim otherwise.

Do I need an account to practise?

No. Every drill is free and works signed out. Signing in only saves your streak and history across devices; your progress on this device is kept either way.

How long should a session be?

Eight to twelve minutes. Short and daily beats long and occasional for anything habit-based, and the drills are built around that — the daily set is one puzzle per domain and takes a few minutes.

Which domain should I start with?

The one you enjoy, for the first week. Once practising is a habit, rotate so no domain is skipped two days running — the domain you avoid is usually the one with the most room in it.

Is the difficulty setting doing anything?

Yes. Each drill changes what it asks, not just the numbers: Easy keeps verbal questions to synonyms and antonyms, while Hard weights analogies and odd-one-out; rotation moves from right angles to 45-degree steps and diagonal mirrors.

Do I have to take the assessment to use this?

No. The practice pages stand alone. The assessment is useful if you want to know which domains to prioritise, but you can practise all five without ever taking it.

Scope: These are practice exercises for skills the assessment samples. They are educational, not training for any specific test, and not a substitute for professional evaluation.
Cognitive Skills & Practice — Train Five Reasoning Domains