What are “Letter Patterns” and how to identify them

A common type of question in verbal reasoning tests are “Letter Patterns”.

They’re questions that look like this:

ZZZ XYB VXD TWF ____

(A) UVG (B) UUU (C) RVH (D) RUH

A key identifying feature of this type of question is the presence of a group of letters in a series.

What do you need to do when you see this type of question?

You need to figure out how each letter or group is changing. That is, find out what the pattern is.

There is one overarching process to answer these questions:

1. Try to detect an existing pattern among the options in the question, then,
2. Apply that pattern to find the solution.

Pattern detection relies on you visually finding an evident pattern quickly and then resorting to other uncommon patterns types if you don't find a pattern quickly. There are a few things to keep in mind for pattern detection. These are:

• Don't consider a 'whole' word for granted – the question may be treating them as 'individual' words.
• Words can go up or down units of the alphabet
• Patterns of units of alphabet can exist horizontally too.
• Some letters can be 'dummy' letters
• Patterns can also be movement of word letters
• Letters can also be dropped at various points (e.g. commonly seen at the beginning or at the end i.e. pattern of -1).

How to quickly answer “Letter Pattern” questions (The Strategy)

Here is a general process:

Look at the question and, if appropriate:

1. Treat each letter within the group as a separate letter - letters can work like numbers, they can go up by units, down by units, skip units etc…
2. Decide if the relationship/pattern could possibly be (a) Within the group itself e.g. ABC, FGH, ZAB (b) Outside of the group e.g. ABC, BCD or (c) A combination of the both.
3. Once pattern is detected, apply it to find the answer.

Make sure that you:

• Count units correctly
• Can clearly see the pattern instead of making one up
• Spend only the allocated time

Example of Strategy in Action:

What are the missing letters in the following series

ZZZ XYB VXD TWF ____

(A) UVG (B) UUU (C) RVH (D) RUH

Correct answer is (c) RVH

Why?

• Look at the relationship outside of each group
• First letter of each group jumps down by two letters
• Second letter of each group jumps down by one letter
• Third letter of each group jumps up by two letters

The video will go through the below four examples:

What are the missing letters in the following series?

NE PD RC TB VA ____

(A) WZ (B) WX (C) XU (D) XZ

What are the missing letters in the following series?

AZD CBF EDH GFJ ____

(A) IGL (B) IHL (C) FJH (D) HGL

What are the missing letters in the series below?

OPPYP _____ PYPOP YPOPP

A: PUPYO
B: PYOPO
C: PYPPO
D: POPPY
E: PPYPO

Key Rules to remember

• Individual letters vs. word as "1" letter
• Pattern existing within the word and/or outside of the word group or letter group
• Units increase/decrease by individual letters or across letters.
• See that patterns that already exists, don't make one up using pre-conceived ideas – the answer is actually present and you'll get an 'ah-ha' moment when you know that you've chosen the correct answer.

Practice time!

Now, it's your turn to practice.

Click on the button below and start your practice questions. We recommend doing untimed mode first, and then, when you're ready, do timed mode.

Every question has two solutions videos after you complete the question. The first is a quick 60 second video that shows you how our expert answers the question quickly. The second video is a more in-depth 5-steps or less explainer video that shows you the steps to take to answer the question. It's really important that you review the second video because that's where you'll learn additional tips and tricks.

Once you're done with the practice questions, move on to the next checkpoint.

Now, let's get started on your practice questions.

---