Alphabet Test Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: S

Build the rearranged alphabet first. The second half comes first, then the first half reversed:

N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z M L K J I H G F E D C B A

Counting from the right, A is 1st, so the 16th from the right is X, which stands at position 11 from the left. The 5th letter to the left of X is at position 6: counting W, V, U, T, S gives S.

The count excludes X itself, which is the convention used throughout this set of questions.

Answer: C

The new alphabet series is :
B  A  D  C  F  E  H  G  J  I  L  K  N
M  P  O  R  Q  T  S  V  U  X  W  Z  Y
The seventeenth letter from the right is I

Answer: C

Correct answer: X

Reversing the second half leaves the series A B C D E F G H I J K L M Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N. Counting from the right, the seventeenth letter is J, which stands tenth from the left. Counting seven places to the right from J - taking J itself as the first - gives J, K, L, M, Z, Y, X, so the letter arrived at is X. The stem’s phrase “in the middle of 7th and 7th letter” is garbled in this record; the arithmetic that yields the keyed letter is the one shown.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Two

The test is that the gap between two letters in the word equals the gap between them in the alphabet, with the second letter also later in the alphabet.

In INTERNATIONAL two pairs qualify: I and N at positions 1 and 6, five apart in the word and five apart in the alphabet (9 and 14); and N and T at positions 2 and 8, six apart in both (14 and 20).

Several other pairs match by distance - O and N, T and R among them - but run backwards alphabetically, so the sequence condition excludes them.

Answer: B

Correct answer: w

The halves are A to M and N to Z, thirteen letters each, so a letter's position within its own half is what corresponds.

J is the 10th letter of the first half. The 10th letter of the second half is

\[ 13 + 10 = 23 \rightarrow W \]

Counting within the half rather than from A is the step the question is testing, and it works because the two halves are of equal length.

Answer: D

Correct answer: U

Strike out every A from the arrangement and read the remainder:

C U B E D E D B E B U C D B C D B D U B C C B E D

Counting from the left: C, U, B, E, D, E, D, B, E, B, U. The eleventh letter is U.

The deletions must be made before counting - in the original arrangement the eleventh symbol is E, so counting first gives the wrong answer.

Answer: B

Correct answer: YLF

The test is that the gaps between the three letters in the given series match the gaps between them in the alphabet.

In the series, Y is 3rd, L is 16th and F is 22nd, so the gaps are 13 and 6. In the alphabet Y is 25th, L is 12th and F is 6th, so the gaps are again 13 and 6.

Both intervals agree, though the letters have moved and the direction has reversed. None of the other groups reproduces both gaps.

Answer: B

Correct answer: EXERCISE

EXPERIENCE contains the letters E, X, P, E, R, I, E, N, C and E - no S anywhere.

EXERCISE requires an S, so it cannot be formed however the remaining letters are arranged.

The other three all can: PRICE, RICE and NICE draw only on P, R, I, C, E and N, each of which the source word supplies. Checking for a letter that is simply absent is faster than attempting to build each word.

Answer: D

Looking into the alphabets there are four such pairs namely ON,EH,ST,TO.

Answer: B

Correct answer: E

The series is built of blocks that grow by one letter each time, each starting again at A:

A | A B | A B C | A B C D | A B C D E | A B C D ...

The final block has reached A B C D and is the sixth, so it must run to F. The next letter after D is therefore E.

Recognising the block structure is the whole of the problem; the letters within each block are simply the alphabet from the start.