Memory, attention and space
Alphabetic filing
Placing near-identical names in alphabetical order and reading a position off that order — comparing a whole surname before any given name, and holding the sequence when the names separate only at the fifth or sixth letter.
Exams on RankHigh that test this
What follows is our approach, not an official rule. What each question type measures is set by the body that runs the examination. How to work one is RankHigh’s method — it is what a good tutor would tell you, and there is more than one way to be right. Where an examination publishes its own instructions, those govern on the day.
Alphabetizing
Putting a short list of names into alphabetical order and naming the one that falls in a given place in it.
Where people lose it
Ordering on the first two or three letters. These names are chosen to agree that far and to separate afterwards, so a glance produces a confident wrong answer.
How to work itRankHigh method
- Compare surnames letter by letter and keep going until two names actually differ. That letter is the whole decision.
- A shorter surname comes before a longer one that begins with it — Marchand before Marchant, Docker before Dockman only because the fifth letters differ.
- Only look at a given name when two surnames are identical.
- Order the whole list before answering. Reading the ordinal off a half-sorted list is how the second and third places get swapped.
Sort first, then answer the question that was asked. The ordinal changes between items and it is the thing most often misread.
Practice it on your own exam
Method only sticks against real questions. Every exam in the catalog opens with a free twelve-question diagnostic — in your browser, with a worked explanation for every answer, and no signup.
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