Gallery Heist: a shapes, shading and position game for the 11+

About Gallery Heist

Gallery Heist practises the building blocks of non-verbal reasoning: counting sides and lines, reading shading and outlines, describing position and following arrows. A round is a night patrol of 15 puzzles: three galleries of four frames, each leaning on different topics, then three harder laser gates in the Master Vault worth 1,000 bonus points each. Every topic comes up three times a round.

A wrong answer sounds the alarm, and a card explains the trap, such as counting from the wrong end or reading an arrow’s tail as its head. Three right in a row is a clean sweep with double points. Questions get harder after three right in a row and easier after two misses in a row, and the review at the end explains every trap. Gallery Heist is part of the full 11+ Arcade, included in every Prep4All plan.

How to play Gallery Heist

1. Choose a starting level: Cadet (easy), Inspector (medium) or Chief (hard).
2. Press Start the night patrol, or switch on Daily challenge first to play today’s puzzles at Inspector level.
3. Read each frame’s puzzle and tap an answer, or press keys 1 to 5.
4. Get all four frames in a gallery right for a 500-point bonus, and three in a row for a clean sweep.
5. Open the three laser gates in the Master Vault, each worth 1,000 bonus points.

What it practises for the 11+

Shapes

Questions ask how many sides a shape has (dents count too), which shape is regular, which has the most or fewest sides or no straight sides, and which is the odd one out. Teach your child to put a finger on one corner and count round once, so no side is missed or counted twice. Learn the topic →

Counting

Your child counts dots, line crossings, enclosed regions, star points and the triangles or squares hidden in a figure, and uses counts to find an odd one out or continue a series. Lines that only touch do not cross, and the big triangles are easy to forget, so count the small ones first and then the larger ones they make. Learn the topic →

Shading and Line Types

Figures differ in shading (such as black, grey, stripes or dots) and outline (thin, thick, dashed or dotted), and your child matches them, finds the odd one out, continues a series or completes a pair. Ask them to name the shading and outline out loud before looking at the shape, which is often a decoy, and to check which way any stripes lean. Learn the topic →

Order and Position

Questions use position words: which shape is third from the right, which sits between two others, what is in row 2, column 3, and which figure has a dot in the same place. Practise with a row of toys at home: ask which is second from the left, then which is second from the right.

Pointing

Your child counts arrows pointing a given way, finds the arrow pointing the opposite way, and works out where an arrow points after a turn, using compass words such as North-East. Each step round the eight compass points is 45°, so stand up together, face North and practise quarter and half turns. Learn the topic →

Shapes, shading, position and arrow questions are part of non-verbal reasoning, which GL Assessment, CEM, ISEB and many independent schools set; FSCE and CSSE set no reasoning papers.

Try Gallery Heist questions

Questions from the game, for you to try together. Have a go before opening the answer.

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All non-verbal reasoning games → · All 11+ games →