Practice Aptitude Tests

Cognitive Ability: Test 1

1. Question 1 of 10

   A Thornleigh Air aircraft is scheduled to fly three sectors to Jervaulx on Tuesday, each lasting 2 h 45 min. What is the total flying time in hours?

   1. 7.35 hours
   2. 8.25 hours
   3. 9.00 hours
   4. 12.25 hours
   Show the answer

   Answer: B. 8.25 hours

   Turn the sector length into decimal hours first, then multiply. 45 minutes is 45 divided by 60 = 0.75 hours, so each sector is 2.75 hours. 3 x 2.75 = 8.25 hours. A common error here is writing 2 h 45 min as 2.45 hours, which gives 7.35 hours. Minutes run to 60, not to 100, so 45 minutes is three quarters of an hour.

2. Question 2 of 10

   Skelwith Group declared a final dividend of 7.4 pence a share, taking the total for the year to 11.2 pence. The results say the dividend is covered twice by earnings and that the board intends to keep cover at about that level. They give free cash flow of £74 million and note that the group bought back no shares during the year. Skelwith has paid a final dividend in each of the last twelve years.

   Based only on the information in the passage, is the following statement True, False, or Cannot say?

   Statement: “The group’s final dividend is 7.4 pence a share.”

   1. True
   2. False
   3. Cannot say
   Show the answer

   Answer: A. True

   The statement is True. The passage says Skelwith “declared a final dividend of 7.4 pence a share”, which is the statement. The rule: where the passage states the claim, the answer is True. The most tempting wrong answer is False, from reading the 11.2 pence total for the year as the final dividend.

3. Question 3 of 10

   Four meetings are held from Monday to Thursday, one per day.

   • The budget meeting is before the hiring meeting.
   • The safety meeting is on Wednesday.

   Which statement must be true?

   1. The hiring meeting is on Thursday.
   2. The budget meeting is on Monday.
   3. The training meeting is after the safety meeting.
   4. The budget meeting is not on Thursday.
   Show the answer

   Answer: D. The budget meeting is not on Thursday.

   The safety meeting takes Wednesday, leaving Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for the other three. Rule 1 puts the hiring meeting after the budget meeting, so the budget meeting cannot take the last day of the week. Nothing else is settled. The budget and hiring meetings take Monday and Tuesday, Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Thursday, with training taking whichever day is left, so the hiring meeting on Thursday, the budget meeting on Monday and training after safety each hold in some of those weeks and fail in others. The most tempting trap is the hiring meeting on Thursday, because Thursday is the obvious home for the later of a pair. Tuesday works too.

4. Question 4 of 10

   Route	Turnarounds	Total ground time (minutes)
   Ilkeston to Jervaulx	20	900
   Ilkeston to Longmoor	150	9,750
   Ilkeston to Newbold	30	1,110
   Jervaulx to Longmoor	50	1,600

   The table shows Thornleigh Air’s turnarounds last month. Taking every turnaround at Ilkeston as a single group, what was the mean ground time per turnaround?

   1. 45.0 minutes
   2. 49.0 minutes
   3. 53.4 minutes
   4. 58.8 minutes
   Show the answer

   Answer: D. 58.8 minutes

   Keep only the routes that start at Ilkeston, pool both columns, then divide once. Turnarounds: 20 + 150 + 30 = 200. Ground time: 900 + 9,750 + 1,110 = 11,760 minutes. 11,760 divided by 200 = 58.8 minutes. A common error here is averaging the three routes’ own figures, which gives 49.0 minutes. The Longmoor route carries three quarters of the turnarounds and the slowest ground time, so an unweighted average sits well below the true figure.

5. Question 5 of 10

   Cooper’s Field is a development of eighteen houses on the site of a former dairy. Plot 14 has a garden of 210 square metres, and plot 15, on the corner, has a garden of 260 square metres. Plot 14 is the larger house, with four bedrooms against plot 15’s three. Gardens are turfed and fenced before completion, with a paved path to the rear gate. Both plots face the retained oak at the centre of the development, and both carry the same estate management charge for the shared landscaping.

   Based only on the information in the passage, is the following statement True, False, or Cannot say?

   Statement: “Plot 14 at Cooper’s Field has a larger garden than plot 15.”

   1. True
   2. False
   3. Cannot say
   Show the answer

   Answer: B. False

   The statement is False. The passage says “plot 14 has a garden of 210 square metres, and plot 15, on the corner, has a garden of 260 square metres”. On the stated garden areas plot 14’s is smaller, so the claim is contradicted. The rule: comparing two stated figures on the same measure settles the claim either way. The most tempting wrong answer is True, from carrying the house-size comparison onto the gardens.

6. Question 6 of 10

   You are a purchase ledger clerk. Two hundred invoices must be coded before the ledger closes at 6pm and you are ninety behind at 5pm. The coding sheet requires each invoice to be marked as checked against its purchase order. Nobody reviews the sheet. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Tell your manager at 5pm that ninety will not be coded properly by 6pm, and ask whether to hold the close or code them without the purchase order check.
   2. Code as many as you properly can by 6pm and leave the rest for tomorrow, without telling anybody that the ledger has closed with invoices outstanding.
   3. Stay until eight to code all ninety properly, and say nothing about how close the deadline came to being missed this month.
   4. Code the ninety quickly and mark them all as checked against their purchase orders, since the coding itself is right and nobody ever reviews the sheet afterwards.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: A. Tell your manager at 5pm that ninety will not be coded properly by 6pm, and ask whether to hold the close or code them without the purchase order check.

   Least effective: D. Code the ninety quickly and mark them all as checked against their purchase orders, since the coding itself is right and nobody ever reviews the sheet afterwards.

   B: Lets a close happen incomplete in silence: whoever relies on the closed ledger has no idea part of it is missing.

   C: Absorbs the shortfall: the ledger closes right and nobody learns that two hundred invoices does not fit in the day.

   D: Marks ninety invoices as checked when they were not: the sheet is the only evidence the check happened, and everybody downstream reads it as meaning exactly that.

   The most effective response is to tell your manager at 5pm that ninety will not be coded properly by 6pm, and ask whether to hold the close or code them without the purchase order check: an hour before the close she can still choose, and only she can make that trade. It beats coding as many as you properly can and leaving the rest without telling anybody the ledger closed with invoices outstanding, because an incomplete close nobody knows about is the worst version of it. It beats staying until eight to code all ninety properly and saying nothing, because three hours of your own time hides a capacity problem. The least effective response is coding the ninety quickly and marking them all as checked against their purchase orders: ninety invoices are recorded as checked against documents nobody opened. That is falsifying the record rather than under-delivering or absorbing it. The principle: the sheet says what you did, and a deadline is not a reason to change that.

7. Question 7 of 10

   Row	Master	Entered
   1	LS25 4GH	LS25 4GH
   2	CV34 6RP	CV34 6RP
   3	PE21 9WD	PE21 9WD
   4	TS18 3LQ	TS188 3LQ

   Which row was copied incorrectly?

   1. Row 1
   2. Row 2
   3. Row 3
   4. Row 4
   Show the answer

   Answer: D. Row 4

   Row 4 reads TS18 in the master list but TS188 in the entry: the 8 has been typed twice. The doubled digit sits immediately before the space, so the second half of the postcode still lines up and reads correctly, which is what makes the extra character easy to pass over.

8. Question 8 of 10

   Five hearings are held one after another.

   • Fowey is heard first.
   • Dunkeld is heard immediately after Corfe.
   • Brackley is heard after Dunkeld.
   • Ewhurst is heard before Corfe.

   Which hearing is third?

   1. Brackley
   2. Corfe
   3. Dunkeld
   4. Ewhurst
   Show the answer

   Answer: B. Corfe

   Fowey takes first place, leaving positions 2 to 5. Rule 2 ties Dunkeld directly behind Corfe, rule 4 puts Ewhurst in front of Corfe and rule 3 puts Brackley behind Dunkeld, so the order is Fowey, Ewhurst, Corfe, Dunkeld, Brackley. Corfe is third. Eliminate the rest: Ewhurst is second, Dunkeld is directly behind Corfe so it is fourth, and Brackley is at the end of the chain. The most tempting trap is Dunkeld, which is where the pair lands if rule 2 is read the other way round.

9. Question 9 of 10

   You are a check-in agent. A colleague applying for a role in another department asks you to write a short statement about how she handles difficult passengers. She is competent but that is the part of the job she finds hardest, and the statement she has drafted for you describes her as outstanding at it. She asks you to sign it as it stands. Which response below would be most effective, and which would be least effective?

   1. Tell her you cannot sign her draft as it stands, and offer to write something yourself covering what you can honestly say about her work.
   2. Decline to sign it and leave it there, since a statement about somebody else's work is not something you should be drawn into either way.
   3. Sign the draft as she has written it, since statements of this kind are always generous, everybody knows that, and it costs nothing to help a colleague.
   4. Sign it with the wording softened enough that it is not quite untrue, so that she gets her statement without you saying anything you would have to defend.
   Show the answer

   Most effective: A. Tell her you cannot sign her draft as it stands, and offer to write something yourself covering what you can honestly say about her work.

   Least effective: C. Sign the draft as she has written it, since statements of this kind are always generous, everybody knows that, and it costs nothing to help a colleague.

   B: Refuses without offering the alternative: she has real strengths you could describe, and a flat no leaves her with nothing and no idea why.

   C: Puts your name to a description you know to be wrong: whoever reads it relies on it precisely because it comes from somebody who has worked beside her.

   D: Writes to be defensible rather than accurate: the reader still takes it as a recommendation of the part she is weakest at, and the care has gone into wording rather than truth.

   The most effective response is to tell her you cannot sign her draft as it stands, and offer to write something yourself covering what you can honestly say: the draft says something you do not believe, and writing your own gives her a genuine statement from somebody who has seen her work. It beats declining to sign and leaving it there, because she has real strengths and a refusal with nothing after it helps neither of you. It beats signing it with the wording softened enough not to be quite untrue, because carefully worded ambiguity still leaves the reader believing what the draft claims. The least effective response is signing the draft as she has written it because statements of this kind are always generous: it endorses a description of a colleague you know to be wrong, for a reader relying on your having worked beside her. That is worse than the other two, which stop short of endorsing the claim outright. The principle: write what you can honestly say and offer that, rather than signing somebody else’s version or hiding behind wording.

10. Question 10 of 10

    Row	Original	Keyed
    1	WHS-52836-DL	WHS-52836-DL
    2	WHS-52683-DL	WHS-52863-DL
    3	WHS-52368-DL	WHS-52368-DL
    4	WHS-52638-DL	WHS-52638-DL

    Which row was copied incorrectly?

    1. Row 1
    2. Row 2
    3. Row 3
    4. Row 4
    Show the answer

    Answer: B. Row 2

    Row 2 reads WHS-52683 in the original but WHS-52863 in the keyed version: the 6 and the 8 have swapped places. All four references open WHS-52 and close DL, and the three digits in between are orderings of 3, 6 and 8, so no reference can be recognised by its shape or by the digits it holds. Only their order separates them, and the keyed value for row 2 is an ordering that appears nowhere in the original column.