Aptitude Tests > Spatial Ability Tests > Combining Shapes

These questions involve 2-dimensional shapes that have been cut-up into pieces. You are asked to match the pieces to the shape that they came from.

Example Question
1) Which of the complete shapes can be made from the components shown?

Answer
1) B – is the only shape that can be made from the components shown.

The best strategy for answering these questions is to look at the Complete Shapes and see if there are any distinct features that would make it impossible to construct such a shape from the components. In the example above, this is not very obvious but sometimes there are one or two shapes that can be immediately discounted on the basis of size alone.

One thing to remember is that if the Complete Shapes don’t have any bits ‘sticking out’ (they usually don’t) then the components must fit together so that sides of the same length are together. This reduces the number of combinations considerably.