Reviewed 14 September 2026 by the Cognivy editorial team
This page covers what Pearson publishes about the SPM, how the item types change from set A to set E, and a method for the grids that fill the later sets. It is a format guide, not a claim about your score.
- Publisher
- Pearson
- Items
- 60, in five sets (A to E) of 12
- Administration time
- Untimed, individual or group: 20 to 45 minutes
- Age range
- 6:0 to 16:0, and 17:0 and older
- Scoring
- A raw score and a percentile rank against a norm group. No pass mark is published
The skill
What is Raven's SPM?
Pearson states that the SPM test has a total of 60 items presented in 5 sets (A to E) of 12 items, and describes the SPM and SPM Plus as nonverbal tests of observation skills and clear-thinking ability.
The sets are ordered by difficulty and the task changes with them. The early items are completions — a figure or a patterned surface with a piece missing — and the later ones are grids where the answer follows from a rule running across the rows and another running down the columns.
Pearson also publishes SPM Plus, which contains more powerful items while retaining the five-set, sixty-item format of the SPM.
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 and covers both; APM is the hardest and is almost entirely rules held several at a time. Both are linked at the end of this page.
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Free raven's spm practice questions
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What employers are looking at
What the SPM measures
Pearson describes the SPM as producing a single raw score and percentile rank to indicate educative ability, or the ability to think clearly and extract meaning out of events, compared with a norm group in the general population.
What the later sets separate in practice is whether you can state two rules rather than one, and whether you check the option you like against the direction you have not looked at.
Question formats
The item types across the five sets
One test, two families of item. Knowing which set you are in tells you which method to run.
- Pattern completion and jigsaws. A piece cut out of a continuous picture, chosen so the edges and the pattern both continue.
- Surface progressions and mirrors. A patterned surface that changes steadily across the figure, or is mirrored across an axis.
- Progression across the grid. A quantity stepping up or down along a row, along a column, or along both at once.
- One of each. Every row and column carries each value exactly once, sometimes with the element turning or transforming on the way.
- Combining two cells. A third cell built from two others, keeping what they share or what only one of them has.
A three-by-three grid where the third cell of each row keeps only the marks its first two cells share. The completed rows fix the rule; the columns confirm it; and the tray contains at least one option that keeps everything instead of only the overlap, which is the same rule with the cancelling forgotten.
Launch coverage
Who publishes Raven's SPM
Raven's Progressive Matrices is one publisher's family of tests, in three editions plus a Plus form.
- Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM and SPM Plus). Pearson states that the SPM has a total of 60 items presented in 5 sets (A to E) of 12 items, is administered untimed individually or in a group in 20 to 45 minutes, and produces a single raw score and percentile rank against a norm group. Its published age range is 6:0 to 16:0 and 17:0 and older. SPM Plus contains more powerful items while retaining the five-set, sixty-item format.
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, and the sets are ordered.
- Untimed, 20 to 45 minutes. Pearson lists the SPM as untimed, individual or group, taking 20 to 45 minutes. The range is how long it takes, not a limit you are held to.
- Five sets, easiest first. Sets A to E run in order and get harder within and between sets, so the opening items are not representative of the last ones.
- SPM Plus is the same shape, harder. Pearson describes SPM Plus as containing more powerful items while retaining the five-set, sixty-item format.
- A raw score and a percentile. Pearson describes a single raw score and percentile rank, compared with a norm group in the general population.
The SPM produces one raw score and a percentile rank against a norm group. No pass mark is published, and a percentile is a comparison rather than a mark.
Because the administration is untimed, a score is not a measure of speed. Practising against a stopwatch trains something the test does not ask for.
A repeatable approach
A method for the grid items
The later sets reward a fixed procedure, because what goes wrong is a check that was skipped rather than a rule that was too hard.
- 1
Notice which task you are in. A single figure with a gap is a completion. A grid of cells is a rule problem. They fail differently.
- 2
Scan attributes in the same order every time. Shape, count, size, position, rotation, shading, line style. A fixed order stops you missing the attribute that moved.
- 3
State both directions as sentences. If only one direction has a rule, you have not finished the grid.
- 4
Predict before you read the tray. Describe the missing cell in words. Reading the alternatives first anchors you to the most attractive one.
- 5
Reject on a named fault. Say which rule each discarded option breaks. An option you cannot fault is one you have not checked.
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 three-by-three grid. Each cell contains some combination of a horizontal line, a vertical line and a circle.
Row 1: horizontal and circle, horizontal and vertical, horizontal. Row 2: vertical and circle, circle and horizontal, circle. Row 3: vertical and horizontal, vertical and circle, ?
Question. Which option completes the grid?
A. A vertical line only · B. A circle only · C. A horizontal line only · D. A vertical line and a circle · E. All three marks · F. No marks at all
Answer: A — a vertical line only.
- 1
Take the complete rows first. In row 1 the third cell holds the horizontal line, which is the one mark the first two cells have in common.
- 2
Row 2 behaves the same way: the circle is shared by its first two cells and is what the third cell holds.
- 3
So the rule is intersection: the third cell keeps only what both of the first two contain.
- 4
Row 3 shares the vertical line and nothing else, so the missing cell is a vertical line alone.
Why the other options are there. Keeping everything the two cells contain is the union rule, and it is the option most often on the tray. Row 1 already disproves it, which is why reading a complete row before choosing is the whole method.
A three-by-three grid of arrows, each drawn inside a box that also contains a number of dots.
Row 1: arrow up with 1 dot, arrow right with 1 dot, arrow down with 1 dot. Row 2: arrow up with 2 dots, arrow right with 2 dots, arrow down with 2 dots. Row 3: arrow up with 3 dots, arrow right with 3 dots, ?
Question. Which option completes the grid?
A. Arrow down with 3 dots · B. Arrow down with 2 dots · C. Arrow left with 3 dots · D. Arrow up with 3 dots · E. Arrow right with 3 dots · F. Arrow down with 1 dot
Answer: A — arrow down with 3 dots.
- 1
Across a row the arrow rotates a quarter-turn clockwise at each step: up, right, down.
- 2
Down a column the dot count increases by one at each row: one, two, three.
- 3
The missing cell sits in row three and column three, so it needs three dots and the third rotation position.
- 4
The third rotation position is down.
Why the other options are there. The arrow pointing left carries the rotation one step too far — counting forward from the start of the sequence instead of reading the cell's own column position. The arrow with two dots gets the rotation right and drops the column rule, which is the standard half-answer on this format.
What slows progress
Common mistakes, and the fix for each
- Carrying the completion habit into the grids. Fix: when the item is a grid of cells, stop looking at edges and start stating rules.
- Stopping at the first rule. Fix: assume two rules until one rule has eliminated all but one option.
- Solving only across the rows. Fix: state the column rule before opening the tray. If you cannot state it, you have not solved the grid.
- Reading a raw score as a mark. Fix: the score is converted to a percentile against a norm group. It is a comparison, not a mark out of sixty.
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How to prepare
SPM preparation follows the sets: completions first, then the rule families.
- 1
Start with the completions. Jigsaws, surfaces and mirrors. Work until reading the edges of a gap is automatic.
- 2
Then the single-rule grids. Progression and one-of-each, one rule at a time, until you can name the family in a few seconds.
- 3
Then the combinations. Two cells into a third, keeping what is shared or what is not. These are where the late sets live.
- 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.
- Predict before you read the tray. It is faster overall and it removes the pull of an option that satisfies one of the two rules.
- One pass through the alternatives. 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 SPM FAQs
Pearson states that the SPM has a total of 60 items presented in 5 sets (A to E) of 12 items.
Pearson lists it as untimed, individual or group, taking 20 to 45 minutes.
Pearson describes SPM Plus as containing more powerful items while retaining the five-set, sixty-item format of the SPM.
As a single raw score and percentile rank indicating educative ability, compared with a norm group in the general population. 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.