SOF NSO · Bite-size lessons

Analogy

About 6 min · Logical Reasoning · English

Time worked out from the lesson's 313 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.

Analogy is a core logical reasoning topic that tests your ability to identify relationships between pairs of items and apply the same relationship to find missing elements. In SOF NSO, analogy questions appear in three formats: word analogy, number analogy, and figural analogy. Each type follows the fundamental principle A:B :: C:D, meaning "A is related to B in the same way C is related to D."

Key ideas

• Basic Analogy Structure: All analogy questions follow A:B :: C:D format. You're either given three terms and must find the fourth, or you must identify which pair shares the same relationship as a given pair.
• Word Analogy Relationships: Common patterns include synonyms/antonyms, category-member (animal:lion), part-whole (wheel:car), cause-effect (virus:disease), tool-function (pen:write), and degree (hot:scalding).
• Number Analogy Patterns: Look for arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), square/cube relationships, prime numbers, digit sums, positional values, or sequence patterns between the numbers.
• Figural Analogy Logic: Identify transformations like rotation, reflection, increase/decrease in elements, shading changes, position shifts, or shape conversions. The relationship applies visually rather than verbally or numerically.
• Multiple Relationships: Some complex analogies involve two simultaneous relationships. For example, 3:9 :: 4:16 involves both "multiply by itself" and "consecutive integers as bases."

Quick reference

• Analogy format: A:B :: C:D means A relates to B as C relates to D
• Three types: Word (meaning-based), Number (mathematical), Figural (visual transformation)
• Word patterns: synonym, antonym, part-whole, tool-function, cause-effect, category-member
• Number patterns: squares, cubes, multiples, digit sum, prime relationships, arithmetic operations
• Figural changes: rotation, reflection, element count, shading, size, position

Check yourself: 3 questions

This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 21 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.

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