Spatial reasoning is the ability to picture shapes and objects in your mind and work out what happens when you move them: rotate them, flip them, fold them, cut them or fit them together. It lets you see a flat plan and imagine the 3D object, or look at an object and imagine it from another side. Employers measure it with spatial reasoning tests, where you answer questions about shapes after a transformation.
You can see exactly how it is tested in a free spatial reasoning test, which includes a worked solution for each question.
What is spatial ability?
Spatial ability is the general capacity behind spatial reasoning. Psychologists usually break it into a few related skills:
- Mental rotation. Turning a 2D or 3D shape in your head and recognising it at a new angle.
- Spatial visualisation. Carrying out several steps on an image, such as folding a net into a cube or imagining a shape cut in half.
- Spatial perception and orientation. Judging position and direction, such as which way is up, which object is nearer, or which way you are facing on a map.
The terms overlap in everyday use. Spatial reasoning is the most common name in recruitment, spatial ability is more common in research, and you will also see spatial awareness, spatial recognition and visual reasoning. They all point at the same core skill: building an accurate mental picture and changing it correctly.
Spatial reasoning meaning, in plain terms
A useful way to think about it: spatial reasoning is maths and logic done with pictures instead of numbers. You still follow rules, such as “a rotation never flips a shape” or “opposite faces of a cube never touch”, but you apply them to images.
It differs from spatial awareness, which also includes the physical sense of where your own body is. Spatial reasoning is the thinking part. It is also different from abstract reasoning, where you look for a hidden rule across a series of shapes. In a spatial question you usually know the rule already (“rotate this”, “fold this”) and the challenge is carrying it out accurately in your head.
What a spatial reasoning test measures
A spatial reasoning test checks how quickly and accurately you can transform images. Most tests are timed, multiple choice and taken online, and they draw on a small set of question types:
- Rotation. Which option is the original shape turned, rather than mirrored?
- Mirror images. Which option is the reflection of the shape?
- Cube nets and folding. Which cube does this flat net make, or which net makes this cube?
- Block counting and 3D views. How many blocks are in this stack, or what does this object look like from above?
- Maps and orientation. Which way are you facing after a set of turns?
Our spatial reasoning test tips and examples works through each of these with a method and a worked answer.
A worked example
Example. A stack of identical cubes has a bottom layer that is 3 cubes long and 3 cubes deep. Centred on top of that is a layer 2 cubes by 2 cubes, and a single cube sits on top. How many cubes are in the stack?
- Count each layer separately, starting at the bottom.
- Bottom layer: 3 × 3 = 9 cubes.
- Middle layer: 2 × 2 = 4 cubes.
- Top layer: 1 cube.
- Add them: 9 + 4 + 1 = 14.
Answer: 14 cubes. In a picture of this stack you would only see some of the bottom layer. The cubes hidden underneath still have to be there to hold the upper layers up, and counting layer by layer makes sure you include them.
Why employers test spatial reasoning
Spatial reasoning matters wherever people work with drawings, machines, layouts or physical space. That includes engineering, manufacturing, construction, architecture and design, along with the armed forces, aviation and many technical apprenticeships. In these roles you constantly turn a plan into an object in your head, or work out how parts fit. Because the skill is hard to judge from a CV, a test gives the employer a fairer measure, especially for candidates without much work history.
Spatial questions sometimes appear as their own test and sometimes as one section of a wider technical or aptitude assessment.
How to get better at spatial reasoning
Spatial reasoning is not fixed. Two things raise test scores in particular.
- Learn a method for each question type. For example, in rotation questions, track one distinctive feature, such as a dot or a short arm, rather than the whole shape. In cube questions, work out which faces are opposite first, because opposite faces can never be seen together.
- Practise under time pressure. Familiarity with the formats is a big part of speed. Once you have seen a few dozen cube nets, you stop folding every face and start recognising the patterns.
Everyday activities help too: model building, jigsaws, sketching objects from different angles and finding your way without a satnav. Our guide on how to improve spatial awareness has a fuller set of exercises.
Practise spatial reasoning questions
The quickest way to understand spatial reasoning is to try it. Take a timed spatial reasoning practice test, then go back over every question you got wrong and work out which feature you lost track of.
