Official explanation
🏆 Community Explanations
Our puzzles often receive thoughtful and creative solutions from the Reddit community. For this puzzle, several participants shared different ways of reaching the correct answer, A.
The following three contributions stood out for their clarity, consistency, and distinct approaches.
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🥇 One-Preparation-8815
“A
For central dots: If dot in 1st shape center is white, but in 2nd shape center is black, then in 3rd shape center is black. If center is white in 1st and 2nd shape then in 3rd shape center is white.
For black outer dots: 3rd shape includes all black dots from 1st and 2nd shape. For example 1st shape black dots top left top right, 2nd shape black dots top right bottom right, 3rd shape has black dots top left, top right and bottom right.
For white dots: 3rd shape has only white dot which have common position in 1st and 2nd shape. For example 1st shape has white dots top left bottom right, 2nd shape has white dots top right bottom right, then 3rd shape has white dot bottom right.”
One-Preparation-8815 provided one of the most detailed analyses shared by the community.
Instead of applying a single rule to the entire figure, the explanation separates the center, black outer dots, and white outer dots into individual components. This step-by-step method demonstrates how each part of the first two figures contributes to the third and leads consistently to answer A.
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🥈 PrairiePuppies
“A. It’s just binary OR operation. Black is 1/on, white is 0/off. Black OR white = black, black OR black = black.
Actually, it’s a bit reversed from the usual convention, where white is usually 1/on and black is 0/off.”
PrairiePuppies interpreted the puzzle through the concept of Binary OR.
By treating black as 1 (on) and white as 0 (off), the relationship between the figures can be expressed as a simple logical operation. The additional observation that the colors are assigned in the reverse of the usual visual convention makes this explanation especially interesting from a digital logic perspective.
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🥉 garningur
“A. Basically overlay the two left images and get the third image. black+white is black, black+black is black, white+white is white.”
garningur presented the same underlying rule as a visual overlay.
Rather than using technical terminology, this explanation shows that combining the first two figures produces the third: any position containing black remains black, while a position remains white only when both corresponding dots are white. It is a concise and intuitive explanation of why the missing figure is A.
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Thanks to the Community
A sincere thank you to everyone who took the time to study the puzzle and share their reasoning. Each contribution added a different perspective to the discussion and helped make the solution more informative and enjoyable for other readers.