✓ Question 6: the square
Where does the next arrow point?
Why, in question 6: Which shape comes next?
The answer is the square. The shapes repeat in a cycle of three: circle, triangle and square, and after the triangle the square comes again.
Repeating patterns
Many shape patterns are cycles: a group of elements that repeats in the same order every time. To find the length of the cycle, count how many frames appear until the first shape comes back.
Knowing the length of the cycle, you can predict any position. In this case, with cycles of three, the sixth, ninth and twelfth shapes are always squares.
Cycles appear everywhere: the days of the week repeat every 7 days, the seasons of the year every 4, and traffic light colours always follow the same order.
The diamond among the options was a distraction: it never appears in the sequence, so it cannot be the next element of a cycle that uses only three shapes.
A practical way to check is to number the positions and divide by the length of the cycle. The remainder of the division indicates the shape: remainder 1 is the circle, remainder 2 is the triangle, and no remainder is the square.
