The Pattern Task was designed to assess reasoning skills for identifying the underlying regularities of a figural pattern, using these regularities to extend the pattern, and communicating these regularities effectively. The following is the original version of this task:

For homework, Allan’s teacher asked him to look at the pattern below and draw the figure that should come next.

Allan doesn’t know how to find the next figure.

Write a description for Allan telling him which figure comes next.

The pilot data showed that in response to this initial version, many students simply drew a fifth figure rather than providing a description of the pattern regularities, making it difficult to obtain a sense of their solution strategies. The task was therefore revised so it asked students to describe how they knew which figure comes next. This change increased