Write it out, then cross it off

Forwards, backwards, fluent

Forwards, A is one and Z is twenty-six. Backwards, Z is first.

And there is a shortcut worth memorising: the backwards position is twenty-seven minus the forwards position.

Why twenty-seven? Because Z is twenty-sixth from the start and first from the end, and twenty-six plus one is twenty-seven. Prove it once and it never needs to be taken on trust.

So backwards position eight is 27 − 8 = 19, which is S.

The middle letter

The question rarely tells you which letter it wants. Often it wants the middle one, and there is a fixed method:

Count the letters. Add one. Halve it.

MONSTER has seven letters. Seven plus one is eight. Eight halved is four. So the middle letter is the fourth — M, O, N, S. And S is position nineteen.

Then check by counting outwards: MON on the left, TER on the right. Three each. Correct.

Halving before adding one is the error, and it produces three and a half, which is a clue that something has gone wrong.

The new alphabet

This is the hardest family and the one worth the most marks. The question removes every letter of a given word from the alphabet, leaving a shorter one to count along.

Once a letter is crossed off it stops existing. You skip over it — you do not count it and subtract it later.

There is a harder variant that removes only the vowels of the word, or only the consonants. Same method; just be certain which letters you are crossing off.

Which does it want — a letter or a number?

Two directions turn up, and they look almost identical on the page:

Which letter is at position 9? — the answer is a letter. What position does K occupy? — the answer is a number.

Underline the demand. Answering a letter when the question wanted a number is a real and frequent way to lose a mark you had otherwise earned.

Where do pupils lose marks?

Counting a crossed-off letter, instead of skipping it.

Halving before adding one on a middle-letter question.

Removing a repeated letter twice, so the new alphabet comes out too short.

Answering the wrong kind of thing — a letter for a number, or a number for a letter.

Try it yourself

Write both alphabet strips out before you start. It costs fifteen seconds and saves every off-by-one error there is.

1. If the alphabet were written backwards, which letter would be at position 8?
2. What is the alphabet position of the middle letter of RASPBERRY?
3. If all the letters of SQUEEGEE were removed from the alphabet, which letter would be at position 14 of the new alphabet?
4. If all the letters of PNEUMONIA were removed, what position would W occupy?
5. What is the alphabet position of the middle letter of MONSTER?

Show Answers

How much practice does this type need at home?

Very little, once the two strips are automatic. What is worth practising is the writing-out itself: ask for both alphabets on the page before any question is attempted, and time it. Fifteen seconds is the target, and a child who can do it in fifteen seconds stops resenting it.

After that, ten minutes a week of mixed questions — some forwards, some backwards, some crossing off — is plenty.