attention-concentration-q1
The odd code reads XJ84Q2. Its '4' and '8' are swapped relative to the other four, which all read XJ48Q2.
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The odd code reads XJ84Q2. Its '4' and '8' are swapped relative to the other four, which all read XJ48Q2.
Read the reference and each copy in the same order, one character at a time. The copy reading TR5280 has the 8 and the 2 the other way round; everything else matches.
Three entries read Ashborne. The remaining one, Ashbourne, adds a u after the b-o, which is easy to miss because both spellings look plausible.
Both entries read HGX-407 for their first seven characters. The reference then ends 19 while the copy ends 91, so the disagreement is confined to the last two digits.
Only pair A is identical; B, C, and D each have transposed or swapped digits.
Compare only the middle block, since the prefix and suffix are the same throughout. The exception reads 88123 where the rest read 88213, with the 2 and the 1 exchanged.
The entry reading ID0-105L uses the digit zero where the others use the letter O. Checking look-alike characters (O and 0, I and 1, S and 5) separately is the reliable way to catch this.
The entry reading DN14 6OP uses the letter O where the others use Q. Every other character in the four postcodes agrees, so the tail of the code is the only place worth checking twice.
Line the strings up and check each of the eight positions in turn: F becomes E and Q becomes O, while the other six positions agree. That gives two differences.
Checking the reference block by block rules out the rest: one swaps 2 and 0 to give 3201, one reverses the letters to JA, and one ends with a lower-case l instead of the digit 1.
Move left to right and tally only the squares: they sit in the second, fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth places, giving five in all.
▲ appears 4 times in the sequence.
Scan for one target letter only and ignore everything else. T appears three times across the row, so the other letters can be passed over without being read.
Adjacent pairs of the same symbol are where miscounts creep in. Counting each circle separately gives six, including the two pairs that sit side by side.
When a question asks what is not there, it is quicker to count the other symbol directly: there are four diamonds among the ten symbols.
Tally only the fours as you pass along the string; they appear four times. Keeping a finger or cursor on your place stops you rereading a digit you have already counted.
Here the target is a property rather than a particular letter, so read for shape and size only. Five of the ten letters are capitals.
Count the two targets separately and add them at the end: three triangles plus two squares makes five. Trying to hold one combined running total is where errors usually appear.
Slide a two-digit window along the string and check each overlapping pair. The pair 3 7 appears four times; a 7 followed by a 3 does not count, because the order is reversed.
Start at the second symbol and look only at what sits directly to its left. Five symbols follow a circle, and the very first symbol cannot qualify because nothing precedes it.
"Receive" is the correct spelling.
One sentence reads "that the the invoice". Doubled small words slip past easily because the eye predicts the phrase instead of reading it, so short function words repay a second look.
The correct spelling doubles both consonants, cc and mm, and keeps an o before the d. Checking each doubled pair in turn settles which version is right.
One sentence reads "sign register" with no article between the two words. The other differences here are wording changes rather than omissions, so the sentences still read as complete.
Check the three details separately: the order number, the event and the date. Only one statement keeps 4482, pairs dispatch with 12 March, and changes nothing else.
Both the badges and the office belong to the managers, so both slots need the possessive their. There marks a place, and they're is only ever short for they are.
The title reading Senior Date Analyst changes one letter inside a familiar word. Reading job titles and headings letter by letter catches these, because we normally skim them.
One sentence reads "be against checked", with the two words the wrong way round. The others are all grammatical, even though they differ in what is being compared with what.
The instruction attaches a different action to each copy, so keep the two paired as you read: top copy with signing, bottom copy with returning unsigned. Swapping the pair is the usual slip.
The word except removes one named group from the requirement, and that group is the part-time cleaners. Full-time cleaners remain inside all staff, so they still have to attend.
Four values exceed 30: 34, 41, 55 and 37. The value 30 itself does not qualify, because the rule asks for numbers greater than 30 rather than 30 or more.
27, 45, and 63 are odd, three numbers in total.
Test each word separately rather than scanning the list as a block: table, chair, lamp and mat contain an a, and the other three do not.
Divide each value by 4 in turn: 16, 28, 36 and 44 divide exactly, giving four multiples. Being even is not enough, which is what rules out 22, 30 and 50.
Look only at the first and last letter of each word and ignore the middle: level, radar and sees each match at both ends, giving three.
Counting every 'e'/'E' across the sentence gives a total of 12.
Both conditions have to hold at once, so check each number twice: 22, 36 and 48 pass on both counts. The value 20 is even but not greater than 20, and 14 fails the size test as well.
Tally the row letter by letter first: B appears three times, and K, M and R each appear twice, so four different letters repeat. Only T appears once.
Only the two ends of each code matter, so read the first and last characters and skip the middle. A123, D908, F450, G612 and H33 satisfy both ends, giving five.
Apply the rules in order: the odd values are 15, 21, 33, 45, 57 and 9, and removing the multiples of 5 takes out 15 and 45. That leaves four numbers.
Search on the time first and let the activity names go by unread. Only the 19:00 book club matches, and it is held in Room 2.
Take the digits strictly left to right, letting each letter pass without being read: 4, then 9, then 2, then 7. Keeping the original order is what separates the answer from the near misses.
Reading the letters in the order they appear gives H, A, N, D. The distractors keep the same four letters but disturb their order, so the sequence has to be held as you scan.
Use the capitals as the filter and let the lower-case words fall away: RAPID, TRAIN, NORTH, MARKET. The alternatives each pull in a lower-case word or reorder the four.
Only Priya's order counts, so Marcus's coffee and the soup price are there to be ignored. Two teas at £2 plus one cake at £4 comes to £8.
Let the brackets, rather than the letters, guide your eye along the line. Four letters are bracketed, and the unbracketed ones need not be read at all.
A whole word has a space or punctuation mark on both sides, which rules out settings, reset and sunset. That leaves four genuine uses of the word on its own.
The instruction rules out anything beyond the surname, so a title, a first name or an initial all count as extra. The entry giving Okonkwo on its own is the only one that adds nothing.
The bracketed text names what to avoid, not what to do, so the instruction is to use number 14 and to arrive after 2pm. Reading the brackets as the instruction is exactly the trap being set.
Two filters apply at once: the train must go to Leeds and must actually run. The 09:15 is cancelled and the other 09:45 service goes to York, so the earliest remaining option is the 09:45 to Leeds.
Count the letters from the start of the word: H is first, A second and R third. Counting from the wrong end or starting at zero are the two common slips.
Carry out the selection before the arithmetic: the even numbers are 6, 12 and 18, and adding those three gives 36.
Work the steps in the order given: 7 plus 5 is 12, and doubling 12 gives 24. Doubling first and then adding would give 19 instead.
The list holds seven items, and the instruction removes exactly two of them, leaving five. Counting the whole list first makes the subtraction easy to check.
Read the word from its last letter back to its first: Y, A, D, S, E, U, T. The near misses reverse most of the word but transpose a pair in the middle.
The format fixes three things at once: day before month, two digits for each, and four digits for the year. Only one entry satisfies all three without reordering the day and month.
A total of exactly 50 is not more than 50, so it falls into the second condition, which covers 50 or less. Boundary values are worth reading twice for this reason.
Take one step at a time and carry the running value forward: 10 minus 3 is 7, times 4 is 28, minus 2 is 26. Stopping a step early gives 28, and multiplying before subtracting gives 38.
Apply the main rule first and the exception second: A123, C77K, D908, F450 and G612 begin with a letter, and C77K is then removed for ending with one. Four codes survive.
Notebook is the longest word at eight letters, and eight is even, so the second half of the instruction applies and the answer is doubled to 16. Stopping before the condition gives 8, and measuring lantern instead gives 14.
Tally each symbol type separately and subtract at the end: six circles against four squares leaves a difference of two.
Total each team before comparing them: Team A reaches 10 and Team B reaches 11, so Team B is ahead by a single point.
Hold two values as you scan and update either one only when a number beats it: the highest is 47 and the lowest is 9, so the difference is 38.
There are four vowels (A, E, O and I) against three appearances of T, so the vowels lead by one. Keeping the two tallies physically separate stops them merging.
Follow each lift to the end before comparing: Lift 1 finishes on floor 4 and Lift 2 on floor 8, so Lift 2 ends higher.
Four stars contribute 8 and three diamonds take away 3, leaving 5. Counting each symbol type first and applying the weights afterwards is less error-prone than adjusting a total symbol by symbol.
Take the shorter list and test each of its entries against the longer one: 1 is missing from Y, while 3 and 6 appear in both.
One value has to be stored while the other is still being built up: the first number is 6 and there are 7 entries, so the product is 42.
Clerk 1 takes customers 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, so everyone left over sits in an odd position. Noting where the alternation starts is what settles which half each clerk gets.
The two letters directly after an X are skipped, which removes one R and one B from the tally. That leaves three Rs against two Bs, so red leads by one.
The first three become 7, 8 and 9 and the last three become 7, 8 and 9 as well, so each group totals 24 and the whole comes to 48. Applying the first rule to all six numbers would give 51.
The results are 8, 16, 14 and 19, which add to 57. Saying the current rule to yourself before each number keeps the alternation from drifting.
Two vowels appear before the slash and two consonants after it, giving a total of 4. Carrying the first rule past the slash would count the wrong letters in the second half.
The original numbers total 90, and the adjustments are plus 1 four times and minus 1 twice, a net gain of 2. Working with the change rather than recalculating every entry keeps the switch clear.
Row 1 opens with a letter, so its three letters are counted; row 2 opens with a digit, so its three digits are counted. The two counts add to 6.
Two circles qualify before the switch and three squares qualify after it, giving five in all. Symbols that do not match the rule in force at the time are simply passed over.
Working left to right gives 3 plus 4 is 7, times 2 is 14, plus 5 is 19. The instruction overrides the usual convention of doing multiplication first, which would give 16 plus a leftover step.
Desk and lamp have four letters each, so they contribute d and l; chair and stool have five, so they contribute r and l. Checking the length before choosing the rule is the whole task.
Each stretch contributes two items (two numbers, then two letters, then two numbers) for a total of 6. The rule has to be reinstated at the third stretch, which is where the count often slips.
The odd positions give 10, 12 and 9, and the even positions give 5, 6 and 7, so the six results add to 49. Tracking the position as well as the value is what makes this a switching task.
Reading is close to automatic, so the written word arrives before the colour does. Naming the ink means answering green, since that is the colour the word BLUE is printed in.
The question is about how each item is written, not what it is worth. Two items appear as digits, and their values play no part in the answer.
The note settles the conflict by naming which cue has authority, and here that is the arrow. Since the arrow points right, the word on the label can be set aside.
Three words are printed in capitals. The meanings are deliberately number names so that they pull towards arithmetic, but the question only concerns the printing.
Meaning and type size both point the wrong way here, so count the letters instead: LONG has four and SHORT has five.
Find the entry by its opening word, then report only what the brackets hold. The entry beginning with square carries triangle in brackets.
The note gives the words authority over the arrow, so the wording on the sign stands in full: north, three miles away. The physical direction of the post is the cue to suppress.
Count letters rather than think about colours: three, six, four and four respectively, so the six-letter word wins. BLUE and GREY tie, which is why neither can be the answer.
Order the values first (61, 55, 48, 39), and then step one place down from the top. The largest, 61, is named in the instruction precisely because it is the tempting answer.
The third instruction resolves the clash by giving priority to the later of the two, which is the one asking for the total. Adding 7, 12 and 5 gives 24.
The digit 5 appears six times, including one place where two of them sit side by side. Adjacent repeats are the usual reason a long string is undercounted by one.
Counting what does qualify is easier than counting what does not: four triangles plus three diamonds makes seven symbols outside the two named types.
Each code has to pass two tests, so check both before moving on: AB12, 9P8, 3T and MN4 mix the two character types, giving four. The rest are all letters or all digits.
Update one running figure at each step rather than saving the arithmetic to the end: 26, 22, 31, 19, 22 and finally 15.
Five letters follow a Q, and one of those is itself a Q, which still counts because the rule is about position rather than identity. The final Q has a letter after it, so it qualifies too.
Select on the colour and ignore the item type: 12, 15 and 9 are the blue entries, and they add to 36.
Five words carry a doubled pair: tt in letter, ll in ballot, rr in mirror, mm in summer and tt in kettle. Reading each word letter by letter is what makes the pairs visible.
Six numbers are odd and six are even, so neither group leads. A list that alternates in places encourages a guess, which is why both tallies are worth completing.
Five entries open with a vowel and three close with an s, so the result is 5 minus 3, or 2. Some entries fall into both counts, and that is allowed because the two tallies are made independently.
Filter on size first, which removes 18 and 20, then drop the multiples of 3: 27, 45, 33 and 24. The five survivors are 22, 31, 26, 41 and 29.