What Doesn't Belong? Word Groups

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You see several words, and one of them doesn't belong. The trick is to recognize the group that the other words have in common. The higher the level, the closer the words are to each other.

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How it works

Easy: one word comes from a completely different category, such as a tool among animals.
Medium: all words come from the same category, but one differs in a particular property.
Hard: broad categories such as food or animals with mixed subgroups — here you need to look closely.

Sample question

Which item does not belong with the others?

golf
rugby
judo
trombone

Show solution

trombone — The majority belongs to 'sports' (rugby, judo). The outlier 'trombone' belongs to 'instruments'.

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Tips

First find the group that most of the words belong to, then check each word on its own.
If you find two possible odd ones out, the group is probably narrower than you think.

Relevance for IQ and Mensa tests

Categorizing and spotting the odd one out is a typical building block of verbal intelligence tests.

Frequently asked questions

Which languages are the questions available in?

English, German, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

How fast do I have to answer?

There is no time limit in normal training. You can switch on timed mode if you like, though.

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