Sequence

Three planned challenge types

Complete the sequence: the row stops early and you supply the next term. Find the incorrect number: one term breaks an otherwise steady rule. Identify the underlying rule: you name the relationship, not only the next value.

Those are the types we are designing. A future round will say which question it is asking. This page does not run one.

What the row is hiding

Start with the gaps between neighbours. A gap that grows by a constant is still a simple rule, one level down. If the gaps look noisy, check whether each term is a product of two changing numbers, or whether odd and even positions are separate lists.

The general method, with several original rows and answers, is already written as a guide. This page is the game: what a Sequence round is for, and what it will not claim.

Training, Solo, Compete

Training can walk through the differences. Solo is the same row, answered without the walkthrough. Compete would put players on a comparable sequence. None of those rounds is playable on this page.

Practising a puzzle makes you more fluent at that kind of puzzle. It does not establish a gain in general intelligence, or in performance outside the skill being practised.

A way through

• Write the differences before you name a rule.
• Say the rule in one sentence, then test it against every term, not only the last gap.
• If one term refuses the sentence, check for an incorrect number before you invent a more complicated rule.

Questions