Category Classification

Category classification questions give you a set of items and ask you to group them by a shared property — or to identify which category a new item belongs to. The shared property could be a type (fruits, planets, metals), a feature (things that float, things that have wings), or a function (tools for cutting, instruments for measuring). Recognising the right category is a basic but powerful thinking skill.

1. Read all items in the set carefully.
2. List the properties of each item: What type is it? What does it do? What does it look like?
3. Find the property that the majority of items share — that is the category.
4. Confirm that every item you grouped actually possesses that property.
5. If asked to place a new item, check whether it has that same shared property.

Example 1: Rose, Lotus, Marigold, Mango — which group do Rose, Lotus, and Marigold belong to?

• Properties: Rose blooms, Lotus blooms, Marigold blooms, Mango is a fruit.
• Shared property for three items: they are all flowers.
• Category: Flowers.

Example 2: Hammer, Saw, Screwdriver, Needle — place these into categories.

• Hammer, Saw, Screwdriver: tools used in carpentry/construction.
• Needle: a tool used in stitching.
• Two categories: Carpentry tools | Stitching tools.

• Choosing a category that is too broad: "useful things" is not a meaningful category.
• One item can belong to more than one category — check which category best fits the context of the question.
• Distractor items share one surface feature but differ in the core property (e.g., a bat is an animal, not a piece of sports equipment, even though a cricket bat is).

1. Carrot, Potato, Tomato, Onion — what is the category shared by three of them (hint: grown underground)?
2. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon — which item does NOT belong to the category "planets"?