I am going to be sitting a test for a finance company here in Sydney
early in June. I have already passed a few of their tests but this
final one is a test of raw mathemtical abilty. It will involve approx.
150 questions (arithmetic/factoring/conversions etc.)in a set amount
of time with no calculator.

I have been told by others who have passed it (and are now in amazing
well paid positions) that it pays to study up with "speed mathematics"
type books and learn all the shortcuts for large problems. I have been
doing a lot of this and am pleased with my progress so far.

They also said to expect quite a few questions on identifying
sequences/patterns. All the books I have ignore these types of
questions. They mostly deal with tips for dealing wih large arithmetic
problems.
 
I am after any webpages or links to books I can buy which can help me
study up on these types of problems.I have had no luck on amazon
though it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone else does better.
Webpages or links to books which have questions & answers
(specifically for these types of problems) would also be useful.

Although I feel I am doing well in my study so far, if anyone has any
general advice to help me become a better human calculator it would
also be well received.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to your responses. :-)

Luciano Fuentes
Sydney, Australia.

Sequences, as opposed to actual mathematical problems, are often used
in intelligence testing. Word, logic, arithmetic, visual and geometric
sequences are very common in the field.

Many intelligence tests, such as the Stanford-Binet, are proprietary.
You are not likely to find a copy available on the web. Many designers
of standardized intelligence tests also do the scoring privately, so
you cannot even buy an answer sheet. It may be worthwhile trying to
find copies of these at local schools or universities, since your
prospective employer may very well use questions from the proprietary
tests.

To practice your skills, look for "intelligence test sequences" or
something similar on Google. There are dozens of non-proprietary
sequence tests out there.

Here are some:

http://www.jouvetesting.org/eng/tests/sns/pages/index.htm
http://www.jouvetesting.org/eng/tests/mt/pages/index.htm
http://www.iqtest.sk/index.php?jazyk=en&akcia=vase_testy_otazky&typ=int
http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/ultra.html

In case you want to study math sequeces, have a look at the online
encyclopedia of integer sequences at
http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/Seis.html