Odd One Out Questions

Odd One Out questions are usually presented as a line of 5 symbols. Working left to right scan the symbols to observe similarities and differences between them.

You need to look at the elements of the symbols in relation to outlines, shading, line thickness, orientation (i.e. which direction the symbol is ‘pointing’), size, and position in relation to other parts of the main symbol. The number of each of these elements is important too.
In fact, you need to observe all the usual NVR suspects!

Example 1

What observations do we notice about these usual suspects in example 1?

1. All 5 clue symbols have a solid external black line – discount as looking for differences.
2. All 5 clue symbols have a white fill – again, discount as looking for differences.
3. All 5 clue symbols have the same outline shape as each other, again, discount as looking for differences.
4. The clue symbols contain identical arrow heads except for the 3rd symbol which contains a rocket.

What logical steps can we make when we apply these observations to find the Odd One Out??

• Following observation 4, answer symbol c is the Odd One Out.

Example 2

What observations do we notice about these usual suspects in this example?

1. all 5 clue symbols have a solid external black line – discount as we are looking for differences
2. 4 clue symbols have a vertical lined fill
3. symbol c has a white fill
4. clue symbols a, c and e have the same outline, clue symbols b and d also have the same outline

What logical steps can we make when we apply these observations to the task of finding an odd one out?

1. While clue symbol c has the same outline as a and e it has a different fill and unlike the others no other matches so c is the Odd One Out

Odd Ones Outs do not always have to be the one obvious Odd One Out of 4 symbols that are similar (example1). The symbols can also be presented in a combination of one Odd One Out and 2 sets of 2 matching symbols. So while the majority of questions are answered by 1 odd, 4 the same always look for 1 symbol odd, 2 symbols the same, 2 symbols also the same but different again from the other 2. This is shown in Example 2 above.