Incremental Series: Types, Videos and Practice Questions

The questions from incremental series come under the reasoning ability section. Questions from series are very common in the exam. There are many types of series based questions. Following is an in-depth discussion of the concepts and the solutions to the questions that may appear in this section.

Incremental Series

In incremental series, the questions are followed by the series which is in the increasing order. It can also in the form of shapes and figures. You need to establish a relationship between the figures in the question and consequently follow the same approach for the answer figure. This will be better understood with the help of an example.

Incremental series

Source: Youtube.com

Example

Q. In the given figure find which of the figure in the answer will follow the same rules as established in the question?

Question figure Answer figure

A. 1 B. 2 C. 3 D. 4 E 5

Answer: Have a closer look at the question figure. Also, try and look out for those small clues that can help establish the relationship between the figures given in the question. Thus, after having enough knowledge about the relationship between figures try to establish the same with the answer figure.

Now, in this question, you can see that the circle is common between the first figure and the second figure. But in the second figure, there is a triangle between the circle. So the circle is enlarged and the triangle is placed inside the circle. Now, look for the same in other figures. In 3rd and 4th figure also triangle is common and there is a rectangle placed in between the triangle. Thus, a pattern has been established.

Thus, in each of these figures, the 2nd and 4th is followed by the enlargement of the previous figure and placing various shapes into these enlarged figures. Here in the 5th figure, a rectangle is given. So, in the next figure, the rectangle will be enlarged and some shape will be placed inside it.

Out of the given five figures in the option, 4 has a rectangle shape outside and other shapes inside. But in figure 1, there is a rectangle inside a rectangle which is not possible. In figure 3, there is a triangle used which is again not possible and similarly, figure 5 can also be ruled. But in figure 4, there is another shape inside of the rectangle which follows the relationship established in the question. Thus figure (4) is the right answer.

Increasing number of sides example

Q. Which figure will continue the same series as given in the question figure?

Question figure Answer figure

A) 1 B) 2 C) 3 D) 4 E) 5

Answer: Now, in this type, all the figures given in the question have different shapes and sizes. So, the best way to go about this type of question is to count the number of sides of each figure and see whether there is any relationship which can be established. The other way is to count the number of parts divided in each figure.

In figure 1 there are six sides formed while in figure 2 also there are six lines. In figure 3, 4, and 5 there are 9, 9, and 12 lines respectively. Th does not give us any kind of relationship between the figures. Thus, we will move on towards the number of parts in each figure. In figure 1 there are 3 parts, there are 4 parts in figure 2 and 5, 6, and 7 parts formed in figure 3, 4, and 5 respectively. Thus we have determined that every next figure has one more part than the previous figures. So after the fifth figure, the sixth figure will have 8 parts in it.

From the options figure you can see that figure 1 has 11 parts, figure 2 has 8 parts, figure 3 has 8 parts, figure 4 has 6 parts, while figure 5 has 8 parts. But only in figure 5, the number of parts increases with the number of sides. Thus figure 5 is the correct answer.