Reviewed 14 September 2026 by the Cognivy editorial team
This page covers what Pearson publishes about the CPM, what the items look like, and a method for pattern-completion questions. It is a format guide, not a claim about your score.
- Publisher
- Pearson
- Items
- 36, in three sets of twelve: A, Ab and B
- Administration time
- Untimed, individual or group: 15 to 30 minutes
- Age range
- 5 through 11 years, elderly persons, and people with impairments
- Scoring
- A single raw score converted to a percentile from normative data. No pass mark is published
The skill
What is Raven's CPM?
The CPM is the easiest of the three Raven's editions. Pearson states that it consists of three sets (A, Ab, B) of 12 items, and that it can be used to assess the degree to which children and adults can think clearly, or the level to which their intellectual abilities have deteriorated.
Most items are a completion rather than a grid: a figure or a patterned surface with a section cut out, and a tray of alternatives beneath it. The task is to choose the piece that makes the whole consistent again.
The later items introduce relations between cells rather than within one figure, which is where the edition starts to resemble the Standard and Advanced forms.
The three Raven's editions differ in difficulty and in what the items ask. CPM is the easiest and is mostly pattern completion; SPM is the general-population form; APM is the hardest and is almost entirely rules held several at a time. Both are linked at the end of this page.
Try it before anything else
Free raven's cpm practice questions
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What employers are looking at
What the CPM measures
Pearson describes the CPM as producing a single raw score that can be converted to a percentile based on normative data, and as assessing the degree to which children and adults can think clearly.
What the items separate in practice is whether you check a pattern in both directions, and whether you look at the edges of a gap rather than at the middle of an option.
Question formats
The item types in the three sets
The CPM item types are a short list, and most of them are completions.
- Matching the piece. The missing piece continues the pattern exactly, so the answer is the one that lines up.
- Completing a figure. A notch cut out of a picture, where the piece has to finish the whole rather than match a neighbour.
- Patterned surfaces. A continuous background with a section missing, judged by how the pattern runs through it.
- Patterns that step. The surface pattern changes steadily in one direction, or in both at once.
- Simple analogies. What the first pair does to a figure, done again to the third.
A patterned rectangle has a square cut out of it. Several of the alternatives carry the right background and the wrong alignment; one carries the pattern continuing correctly across both edges of the gap. Reading the gap's edges rather than the option's centre is what separates them.
Launch coverage
Who publishes Raven's CPM
Raven's Progressive Matrices is one publisher's family of tests, in three editions.
- Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM). Pearson states that the CPM consists of three sets (A, Ab, B) of 12 items, is administered untimed individually or in a group in 15 to 30 minutes, and produces a single raw score converted to a percentile from normative data. Its published age range is 5 through 11 years, elderly persons, and people with impairments.
Provider names identify the assessment format. Cognivy is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by these providers.
What varies, and what does not
Timing, administration and scoring
The published administration is untimed, which changes what practice is for.
- Untimed, 15 to 30 minutes. Pearson lists the CPM as untimed, individual or group, taking 15 to 30 minutes. The range is how long it takes, not a limit you are held to.
- Three sets of twelve, in order. Sets A, Ab and B run in a fixed order and get harder within and between sets, so the opening items are not representative of the last ones.
- One raw score. Pearson describes a single raw score converted to a percentile based on normative data.
- No pass mark is published. A percentile is a comparison with a norm group. Any threshold belongs to whoever commissioned the assessment.
The CPM produces one raw score, converted to a percentile against normative data. There is no published passing score.
Because the administration is untimed, a score is not a measure of speed, and practising against a stopwatch trains something the test does not ask for.
A repeatable approach
A method for pattern completion
Completion items reward looking at the gap rather than at the options.
- 1
Read the edges of the gap first. Note what has to continue across each edge before you look at any alternative.
- 2
Predict the piece in words. Describe what must be there. Reading the tray first anchors you to whichever option looks closest.
- 3
Check both directions. A patterned surface usually runs two ways, and an option can satisfy one and break the other.
- 4
Reject on a named fault. Say what is wrong with each option you discard. An option you cannot fault is one you have not checked.
- 5
Take the time the format allows. The administration is untimed. Accuracy is the whole of the score.
Original examples
Worked examples
These are Cognivy's own questions, written to teach the method. They are not reproduced from any provider's assessment.
A rectangle filled with evenly spaced diagonal stripes running from lower left to upper right. A square section is missing from the middle of the right-hand edge.
The stripes meet the top edge of the gap at a constant spacing, and continue below the gap at the same spacing and the same angle.
Question. Which piece completes the pattern?
A. Diagonal stripes at the same angle and spacing, aligned with the stripes above and below · B. Diagonal stripes at the same angle, shifted half a spacing · C. Diagonal stripes at the opposite angle · D. A plain square with no stripes · E. Diagonal stripes at the same angle but twice the spacing · F. Horizontal stripes at the same spacing
Answer: A — the aligned stripes.
- 1
Look at the top edge of the gap and note where each stripe meets it. Then look at the bottom edge and note the same.
- 2
The correct piece has to receive each stripe where it arrives and hand it on where it leaves, so alignment is fixed by the edges before any option is considered.
- 3
Angle and spacing are the cheap checks and they remove the opposite angle, the doubled spacing and the horizontal stripes.
- 4
Only alignment separates the two remaining options, which is why the edges come first.
Why the other options are there. The half-spacing shift is the option this format is built around: right angle, right spacing, wrong position. It is invisible if you look at the middle of the piece and obvious if you look at the edges of the gap.
Two pairs of figures. The first pair shows what the rule does; the second pair is missing its result.
First pair: a square with a dot in its top-left corner becomes a square with a dot in its top-right corner. Second pair: a triangle with a dot at its left vertex becomes ?
Question. Which option completes the second pair?
A. A triangle with a dot at its right vertex · B. A triangle with a dot at its left vertex · C. A triangle with a dot at its apex · D. A square with a dot at its right corner · E. A triangle with two dots · F. A triangle with no dot
Answer: A — a triangle with a dot at its right vertex.
- 1
State what the first pair does: the figure is unchanged and the dot moves from the left side to the right.
- 2
Apply the same change to the third figure rather than to the first. The figure stays a triangle.
- 3
The dot moves from the left vertex to the right vertex.
- 4
Check that nothing else changed: the number of dots and the shape are both untouched.
Why the other options are there. Changing the shape as well as the dot is the standard analogy error: the rule is what the pair does, not what the two figures look like side by side. Leaving the dot where it started is the other one, and it survives a glance because the figure is otherwise correct.
What slows progress
Common mistakes, and the fix for each
- Matching the background instead of the pattern. Fix: check where each line meets the edge of the gap, not what the option looks like in isolation.
- Checking one direction. Fix: state both directions before choosing, even when one of them looks obviously satisfied.
- Hurrying an untimed test. Fix: the published administration is untimed. Spend the time.
- Reading the analogy items as completions. Fix: when two pairs are shown, the rule is what the first pair does. Say it out loud before looking at the tray.
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How to prepare
CPM preparation is short: learn what the item types ask, and practise checking rather than recognising.
- 1
Start with the completions. They are most of the test. Work until reading the edges of a gap is automatic.
- 2
Then the stepping patterns. A surface that changes in two directions at once is where a one-direction habit fails.
- 3
Finish with the analogies. Different task, same discipline: state the rule before opening the tray.
- 4
Practise untimed. The published administration is untimed, so train accuracy rather than pace.
Cognivy uses your assessment date to choose the route rather than asking you to predict a study schedule. When you sit down to practise, you choose the session length that fits that day.
Pace
Working steadily rather than quickly
There is no clock to beat, so this section is about not rushing.
- Let the gap do the work. Reading the edges first is faster than comparing six alternatives against a whole figure.
- One pass through the tray. With a prediction in words, one pass is enough. A second pass usually means the prediction was vague.
- Do not trade accuracy for pace. The administration is untimed and the score is a raw count. Speed buys nothing here.
Direct answers
Raven's CPM FAQs
Pearson states that the CPM consists of three sets (A, Ab, B) of 12 items, so 36 in all.
Pearson lists it as untimed, individual or group, taking 15 to 30 minutes.
Pearson gives its range as 5 through 11 years, elderly persons, and people with impairments. It is the easiest of the three Raven's editions.
As a single raw score converted to a percentile based on normative data. No pass mark is published.
No. Cognivy is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Pearson. Every practice item here is original material built to teach the format.