Updated April 2026 · 8 min read · Talogy / Cubiks · Pure abstract reasoning
| Provider | Talogy (formerly Cubiks) |
|---|---|
| Test name | Logiks Intermediate Abstract Reasoning |
| Format | 20 questions · 6 minutes · abstract / inductive only |
| Used by | European graduate schemes — engineering, energy, manufacturing |
| Defining feature | Pure pattern recognition with extreme time pressure (~18 sec per item) |
Logiks Intermediate Abstract is Talogy's mid-tier inductive reasoning test. It sits between Logiks General (mixed) and Logiks Advanced Abstract (harder patterns). The Intermediate level uses standard pattern-recognition rules but at high speed: 20 items in 6 minutes means ~18 seconds per question.
Each item shows a 3x3 matrix or sequence of shapes with one element missing. You select the option (from 4-6 choices) that completes the pattern. Patterns combine the standard transformations:
At the Intermediate level, most items combine 2 rules. Identifying both rules quickly is the key skill.
Raw correct answers, converted to percentile. Average graduate score is ~12-14 out of 20. Top quartile (75th+ percentile) sits at 17+/20.
This tier is most common in European graduate schemes with a strong technical or engineering flavour — manufacturing, energy, and engineering employers use it as a fast first-stage cognitive screen, often ahead of a more detailed technical or numerical assessment later in the process. Because the test measures abstract pattern-recognition rather than any job-specific knowledge, it's popular for roles where technical training happens on the job and employers primarily want evidence of raw reasoning ability rather than pre-existing domain expertise. If your invitation mentions "Logiks" alongside an engineering, energy, or manufacturing employer without specifying "General" or "Advanced," Intermediate Abstract is the most likely candidate, particularly for graduate or early-career roles rather than senior hires.
Master the seven core rules until pattern identification is reflexive. Spend 2-3 hours on Raven's APM-style practice (the rules transfer directly).
Two-rule decomposition. When a pattern feels stuck, ask: "What changes row to row?" Then separately: "What changes column to column?" If you can identify the row rule independent of the column rule, the answer falls out.
18-second discipline. If you've spent 25 seconds on an item, mark and move on. Time saved on later items is worth more than time spent on the current one.
Build speed through repetition, not just understanding. Understanding how each of the seven core transformation rules works is necessary but not sufficient at this pace — the goal of practice isn't just comprehension, it's making rule-identification fast enough to happen in a few seconds rather than requiring deliberate thought each time. Repeated timed practice, specifically under the real 18-second budget rather than untimed review, is what actually builds this speed; untimed practice alone tends to build understanding without building the speed the real test demands.
Use a consistent scanning order. Rather than letting your eyes wander across a matrix randomly, develop a consistent scanning habit — left to right, top to bottom, checking rows first and then columns, every time. A consistent approach reduces the cognitive overhead of deciding how to look at each new item, freeing up more of your limited 18 seconds for actual rule identification rather than figuring out where to look first.
Don't second-guess a confident first read. At this pace, a candidate's first instinct about the pattern is usually correct if they've built genuine pattern-recognition fluency through practice — hesitating to double-check an already-confident answer costs time without meaningfully improving accuracy. Trust built through practice, rather than in-the-moment deliberation, is what this test format ultimately rewards.
Since mastering "the seven core rules" is the headline preparation advice above, it's worth naming what they typically are, in illustrative form: rotation (a shape turns a fixed number of degrees from one cell to the next), reflection (a shape mirrors across an axis), size progression (a shape grows or shrinks in a consistent step), shading/fill change (a shape alternates or cycles through fill patterns), addition/subtraction of elements (a shape gains or loses a component moving across the matrix), position shift (an element moves to a different location within its cell in a consistent pattern), and combination (two of the above rules apply simultaneously, independently, to the same matrix). At the Intermediate tier, items typically combine at most two of these seven, and identifying which two is usually enough to solve the item — you don't need to consider all seven for every question, just develop the habit of testing the two or three most visually obvious candidates first.
Because Logiks Intermediate Abstract draws on the same family of transformation rules used in classic Raven's Progressive Matrices-style tests, practice material built around Raven's APM transfers directly and is a genuinely efficient way to build the underlying pattern-recognition skill before switching to Logiks-specific timed practice. The one meaningful difference to be aware of is pacing: traditional Raven's practice materials are often administered untimed or with generous time limits, which builds accuracy and rule-recognition but not the specific 18-second discipline Logiks Intermediate Abstract demands. A sensible sequence is to build genuine rule fluency with untimed or lightly-timed Raven's-style material first, then shift to strictly timed Logiks-format practice in the final stretch before your actual test, so the last thing you build is speed under the real constraint rather than the first thing. Skipping straight to timed practice before the underlying rules feel genuinely automatic tends to just reinforce guessing under pressure rather than building real accuracy, which is why the sequence — understanding first, speed second — matters more than the total number of hours invested.
Like Logiks Advanced Abstract, the Intermediate tier has no numerical or verbal content at all — every item is a matrix or sequence of shapes, but with fewer, simpler rules combined than the Advanced tier uses.
Q. A sequence of four shapes is shown, followed by a blank fifth position. Across the sequence, the shape rotates 90° clockwise at each step, and the fill alternates between solid black and white. Which of the four answer options completes the sequence?
Approach: separate the two rules mentally rather than trying to track both at once. First, track rotation alone across all four visible shapes to confirm the pattern (90° clockwise each step). Second, track fill alone (alternating black/white) independent of rotation. Combine both only at the final step to select the answer.
The correct answer is whichever option matches both the next rotation step AND the next fill in the alternating sequence — a common distractor gets the rotation right but the fill wrong, or vice versa.
At the Intermediate level, most items combine exactly two rules like this — rarely more. The skill to build is decomposing a pattern into its separate, independent rules quickly, rather than trying to perceive the whole transformation as one complex step.
Logiks Intermediate Abstract gives 20 questions in 6 minutes — about 18 seconds per question, a genuinely tight pace that leaves no time for uncertainty once you've identified the rules.
If you're past 25 seconds and still unsure, flag and move on — you can't recover time lost on one stubborn question at this pace.
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