Vali Nasser - Speed Distance Time and Numerical Reasoning Tests: Useful for the numerical part of AOSB tests

Speed Distance Time and Numerical Reasoning TestsUseful for the Numerical Part of AOSB Tests By Vali Nasser Copyright 2014 E-book editions may also be available for this title. For more information email: All rights reserved by the author. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and/or author. ISBN-13: 978-1495285981ISBN-10: 1495285987Jan 2014 Every effort has been made by the author to ensure that the material in this book is up to date and in line with the requirements to pass various types of speed distance time and numerical reasoning tests at the time of publication. The author will also do his best to review, revise and update this material periodically as necessary. Table of ContentsIntroduction This book is aimed at helping you pass the Speed Distance Time and the Numerical Reasoning tests that you can expect during the Army Officer Selection process. Table of ContentsIntroduction This book is aimed at helping you pass the Speed Distance Time and the Numerical Reasoning tests that you can expect during the Army Officer Selection process.

Although you will be given other mental aptitude tests too, for example verbal reasoning and abstract reasoning tests, this book concentrates purely on Speed Distance Time and Numerical Reasoning questions. The numerical reasoning tests are usually multiple choice questions where you need to pick one correct option from the five choices provided. No calculators are provided but you can use paper and pencil. The Speed Distance Time tests are also given to some candidates that are typically given orally. Again no calculators are allowed. The critical factors in passing these tests are accuracy as well as speed.

Although a lot of the material in the first two chapters will be familiar to you, hopefully you will find some of the Speed Methods introduced helpful for working out basic questions in arithmetic quickly and will help you to work within the tight time frames required. Subsequent chapters will give you examples of how to work out percentages, fractions, proportions, ratios, areas, volumes, speed time and distance questions as well as data interpretation questions. Further, there are practice tests given to help you feel more confident at the test itself. One thing to remember is that there is often more than one way of working out a given problem. It does not matter which method you use, so long as you feel comfortable with it. You will be marked only for the correct answer.

The arithmetic part of the book gives you a variety of methods to choose from, including Speed Methods of calculations. Finally, although some of you may find the first two chapters very easy and be tempted to skip them, my advice is to go through them quickly to make sure you remind yourself of speed methods of adding and subtracting as well as those of multiplying and dividing without a calculator. Remember in the actual test you will be working against limited time. Good luck with your tests. About the Author The author of this book has experience in consultancy work and teaching. The authors initial book Speed Mathematics Using the Vedic System has a significant following and has been translated into Japanese and Chinese as well as German.

In addition, his book Pass the QTS Numeracy Test with Ease is very popular with teacher trainees. Besides being a specialist mathematics teacher the author also has a degree in psychology. This has enabled him to work as an organizational development consultant giving him exposure to psychometric testing particularly applicable to numerical reasoning. Besides working in consultancy he also managed the QTS numeracy tests for teacher trainees at OCR in conjunction with the teaching agency. Subsequently he has tutored and taught mathematics and statistics in schools as well as in adult education. Chapter 1: Arithmetic part IAddition and Subtraction using Speed Methods The normal approach of column addition and subtraction is a good method and if you feel happy with it then you should have no problems with this part of arithmetic.

Make sure that when dealing with adding and subtracting decimal numbers, the decimal points are aligned. The following additional methods will prove useful in increasing your speed which could be a critical part of many numerical reasoning tests Consider the Speed Method below for addition Compensating or adjusting methodIn this method we simply adjust by adding or subtracting from the rounded up or rounded down number as shown in the examples below. In example 1 we round up 96 to 100 and adjust by taking away 4. Similarly we round up 69 to 70 and adjust by taking away 1. See below for all the working out.Example 1:96 + 69 =100 4 + 70 1 = 170 5 = 165Example 2:Work out: 1.96 + 3.89This can be re-written as 2 4p + 4 - 11p= 6 - 15p = 5.85Example 3:Work out: 1 hours 52 minutes + 59 minutesThis can be re-written as:2 hours 8 minutes + 1 hour 1 minutes= 3 hours 9 minutes = 2 hours 51 minutesBasic Arithmetic QuestionA customer buys three items from a shoe shop, items A, B and C. The selling prices are as follows: A sells for 23.90, B sells for 33.75 and C sells for 19.95.

A customer buys all three items. Find the total amount the customer has to pay.Method:Total cost = 23.90 + 33.75 +19.95= 24 - 10p +34 - 25p + 20 5p = 24 +34 +20 - 10p - 25p - 5p= 78 40p = 77.60Subtraction You probably remember column subtraction and the number line method from your GCSE days or from when you last did maths. Before we go on to use the Speed Method let us revisit the familiar method for subtraction. Example1:Work out: 241 - 28Traditional column method The traditional methods of subtraction serve us well in mathematics. However, there is one more strategy that we can use to make this process much easier but more of this later. Consider the following example: Starting from the right hand side we cannot subtract 8 from 1 so we borrow 1 from the tens column to make the units column 11. Consider the following example: Starting from the right hand side we cannot subtract 8 from 1 so we borrow 1 from the tens column to make the units column 11.

Subtracting 8 from 11 gives us 3, however since we have taken away 1 from the tens column we are left with 3 in this column. Subtracting 2 from 3 in the tens column gives us 1. Since we have nothing else to take away the final answer is 213. Speed Method of SubtractionExample1: Now consider the same problem using a Speed Method. If we add 2 to the top and bottom number we get: You can see that subtracting 30 from 243 is easier than subtracting 28 from 241! This strategy relies on the algebraic fact that if you add or subtract the same number from the top and bottom numbers you do not change the answer to the subtraction sum. So essentially we try and add or subtract a certain number to both the numbers in order to make the sum simpler. A few more examples will help.