Most aptitude books are reference encyclopedias — exhaustive, dense, and silent on the one thing placement tests actually reward: speed under pressure. This workbook is built the other way round: concept, named techniques, one flagship shortcut, two worked examples, the traps that cost marks, and timed drills. The goal is to make you test-ready, not just syllabus-finished.
Six habits that clear the cut-off
- Triage in the first minute. Scan the section and solve the easy, high-confidence questions first. Never let a hard problem early on eat the time that ten easy marks were waiting for.
- Bank the shortcuts. If a question matches a c2edge shortcut — unit-digit cycles, (x/10)² loss, alligation — use it. Recognising the pattern is faster than deriving the answer.
- Use the options. It is multiple choice, not an essay. Plug in, approximate, or eliminate absurd options. The right answer is already on the page.
- Guess intelligently when there's no negative marking. If the scheme has no penalty, never leave a blank — eliminate what you can and pick. A 1-in-2 guess beats a certain zero.
- Watch the clock, not the question. Set a hard per-question ceiling. If you cross it, mark, skip, and return. Time is the scarce resource, not difficulty.
- Read the last line first. In word problems and comprehension, knowing what is asked tells you what to look for — you read once, with purpose, instead of twice.
The Edge
The single biggest score lift is not solving harder questions — it is not losing the easy ones to careless speed. Get every question you can do, done correctly, before you gamble a second on the ones you can't.How to use this workbook
- Work, don't read. Solve every drill with pen and paper before checking the key. Passive reading builds zero speed.
- Time yourself. Each drill shows a target time. Beating the clock matters as much as being right.
- Mine your misses. A wrong answer is a lesson. Revisit the concept and the trap box before moving on.
- Finish with the mocks. The full-length mock tests at the end mirror a real screening round — treat them like the real thing.
Speed is a habit, not a talent
You don't rise to the level of the test — you fall to the level of your practice. Every timed drill you finish is a rep. Do the reps, trust the shortcuts, and walk into the screening round already knowing what it feels like to win it.Takeaways
- Triage first. Harvest the easy marks before touching the hard ones.
- Pattern beats derivation. Recognise the shortcut and skip the long arithmetic.
- Never blank without penalty. Eliminate and guess when marking is positive-only.
- Pace by the clock. A per-question ceiling protects the marks you can already bank.