Free reasoning test
Logical Reasoning Test
This logical reasoning test gives you 12 short sets of statements and asks what must follow from them. It checks deduction: reaching a conclusion that is guaranteed, not just likely.
Questions start easy and end with a puzzle that catches most people. You get the answer and the reasoning after each one. Free, no sign-up, no time limit.
- 12 questions
- About 6 minutes
- Explained as you go
- All the roses in this garden are red.
- This flower is a rose from this garden.
Which statement must be true?
What this logical reasoning test measures
Deductive reasoning is working out what must be true when you accept some statements as given. If all roses here are red and this is a rose, it is red. No guessing, no outside knowledge.
The test mixes four kinds of problem. Syllogisms combine "all", "some" and "no" statements. Conditionals use "if... then". Ordering puzzles ask you to line people or objects up from clues. And two questions test counting and consistency, where you must track what every statement allows.
The hard part is rarely the logic itself. It is resisting conclusions that sound right. "Some pilots are teachers" feels like it follows from the pilot question. It does not, and spotting that is exactly the skill being tested.
How logical reasoning relates to IQ
Reasoning with rules sits close to the centre of what intelligence tests measure. Many IQ and aptitude tests include verbal deduction items like these, and scores on reasoning tasks tend to correlate well with overall IQ.
Our full IQ test does not use words for this. Its rule application questions show you a visual rule and ask you to apply it to a new case. The skill underneath, holding a rule steady and following it without drifting, is the same one you used here.
A 12-question test is far too short to estimate IQ, and this one has not been normed on a population. Treat your score as a snapshot of how you handled these particular puzzles.
The two traps behind most wrong answers
Affirming the consequent. "If it rains, the match is cancelled. It was cancelled, so it rained." It sounds natural, but the match could have been cancelled for another reason. The valid move runs the other way: no cancellation means no rain.
Belief bias. People accept conclusions that sound plausible and reject ones that sound odd, regardless of whether they follow. A useful check is to swap the words for letters: "All A are B. Some B are C." Does "some A are C" follow now? It is easier to see that it does not.
A quick method for ordering puzzles
Write the positions as blank slots and fill in the fixed clues first (far left, middle). Then place the clue that has the fewest options. On the bookshelf question, green could only go in two places, and only one of them left room for blue. After that the last book has one slot left.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good score on a logical reasoning test?
On this 12-question test, 11 or 12 is excellent and 8 to 10 is good. The last four questions are deliberately harder, so a score of 8 usually means you handled all the basics and some of the tricky ones.
What is the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning?
Deduction gives a conclusion that must be true if the statements are true. Induction spots a pattern and predicts the next case, which is likely but not guaranteed. This test is deduction. Number sequence and matrix puzzles are closer to induction.
Is logical reasoning the same as IQ?
No, but it is one of the abilities IQ tests sample. Full IQ tests also cover patterns, spatial reasoning, working memory and more, then combine them. A short logic quiz on its own cannot give an IQ score.
Can you get better at logical reasoning tests?
Yes, practice helps a lot with this format. Learning the common traps (affirming the consequent, reading "some" as "all") and drawing quick diagrams makes these questions far easier. That is familiarity with the format, not a change in underlying ability.
Are these questions like job aptitude tests?
They are similar in style to the deductive reasoning sections used by many employers and graduate schemes. Real aptitude tests are usually timed and longer, so use this as warm-up practice rather than a prediction of your result.