Schedule and Timetable Matching

Schedule and Timetable Matching questions are a staple of OC Thinking Skills — and they are highly systematic once you know the pattern. Let's begin with the most common variant: given a person's likes and dislikes, find the one day when they won't show up.

This exact format appears in most OC Thinking Skills tests and is frequently placed early in the paper. It rewards students who are thorough rather than quick — missing a single cell in the table is all it takes to get it wrong.

The examiner is checking whether you can cross-reference a table of options against a set of personal preferences and correctly identify the day where no liked option appears — not just reduce the number of options, but find the one day with zero qualifying choices.

A character will only attend an activity on days when at least one item they enjoy is available. You're given a lookup table of items and their days, told what the person dislikes, and asked which day they skip entirely.

Sometimes the question is not about days or timetables at all — it is about people. Given a group of friends with different tastes, can you find the single option they all agree on? This is the simplest form of preference-matching: build a checklist and look for the column that is all ticks.

Preference intersection questions appear regularly in OC Thinking Skills, often early in the paper. They look easy but students rush them and miss a constraint — the safest approach is always to build a column for each person before deciding.

The examiner is testing whether you can track multiple sets of likes and dislikes at the same time without mixing them up. The key trap is misreading one person's rule (e.g. confusing "does not like cartoons" with "likes all movies except cartoons").

Several friends or people each have a stated preference — some positive ("only likes X and Y"), some negative ("likes all except Z"). You must find the one option that satisfies every single person.

Inge and Finn first meet on a Tuesday. Eight days later they meet again. Four days after that they meet a third time. Which day of the week is that third meeting? This is the simplest form of day-counting arithmetic: start on a known day, add one number, add another, and read off the result.

Day-counting questions with a two-step offset are one of the most common OC TS question types. They appear on nearly every official practice paper and are worth getting right quickly. Students who count seven as "one full week back to the same day" and then count the remainder reach the answer in seconds.

The examiner is testing whether students can add multi-day gaps to a named day of the week without losing track. The trap options (Tuesday and Wednesday) catch students who either stop after the first gap or confuse "8 days later" with "8 days from Monday (the next day)" instead of counting correctly from Tuesday.

A short paragraph gives a starting day and one or two subsequent offsets (e.g. "8 days later", "4 days after that"). The question asks what day of the week one specific meeting falls on. Four answer options are all days of the week — often including the start day and the next day to catch off-by-one errors.

Now let's step up to a more demanding variant — one where you must satisfy an additional mandatory constraint on top of your available days. This is where many students go wrong by not reading the extra requirement carefully enough.

Constrained matching questions like this appear regularly in the middle-to-upper difficulty range of OC TS tests. The mandatory condition is the key twist that separates this type from straightforward preference matching.

The examiner wants to see whether you can handle a two-step problem: first, honour the mandatory constraint by assigning it to the only day it can occupy on your schedule, and then check which other clubs are still possible with the days that remain.

You're given a set of available days, a table of clubs or activities with their meeting days, and a rule that one specific club MUST be included in your plan. You need to identify which other club cannot fit once the mandatory one locks in a day.

Here is a classic Schedule and Timetable question with a twist — you have three available days AND a mandatory sport that must be included. The trick is to lock in the mandatory sport first, then check which other sports can fill your remaining free days.

This "mandatory-plus-check" format appears regularly in OC Thinking Skills tests. It is easy to get wrong if you try to check all sports at once instead of fixing the mandatory one first.

The examiner wants to see whether you can handle two constraints at the same time: a set of available days, and a mandatory activity that locks in one of those days. Once the mandatory slot is fixed, you check each remaining option against your still-free days.

A table lists activities and the days they run. You are told which days you can attend and that one specific activity must be included. You must find the activity that can never fit into your plan.

A dentists' surgery is open for 9 hours, each dentist takes a 60-minute lunch break, each appointment is 20 minutes, and there are 3 dentists. How many appointments can they fit in a day? This is a clean, multi-step capacity question — the kind that trips up students who rush and forget to subtract the lunch break.

Capacity and scheduling calculation questions appear in almost every OC TS exam. They are structured around a real-world scenario (opening hours, break times, slot durations) and test whether students can carry out a small chain of arithmetic steps in the right order. The most common error is skipping the lunch-break subtraction, which lands students on the trap answer 81.

The examiner is testing whether students can: (1) convert opening hours to minutes, (2) subtract non-working time, (3) divide by the slot length, and (4) multiply by the number of workers — all in sequence without losing track. Each wrong answer corresponds to a specific arithmetic mistake, so the options are carefully designed traps.

A workplace (clinic, bus route, shop) has fixed opening hours. Each worker has one or more break periods and serves customers in fixed-length time slots. You must find the total capacity for the day. The key steps are always: total time → subtract breaks → divide by slot length → multiply by number of workers.

Shiro sees everyone in Chromatica wearing the same colour. He checks the festival colour table — and is still not sure which festival it is. That "still not sure" detail is the whole key to the question. This puzzle teaches one of the most useful table-reading skills: recognising that ambiguity means the value must appear more than once in the data.

Table-reading questions with an "ambiguity" or "still unsure" condition appear regularly in OC TS. They combine simple data lookup with a logical layer: if a person cannot determine the answer, what does that tell you about the data? This type of question rewards students who think about what the data excludes, not just what it includes.

The examiner is testing whether students can use an "uncertainty" clue in reverse — if Shiro is still unsure, yellow is automatically eliminated because it uniquely identifies one festival. Students who only look up colours without asking "which ones would leave him unsure?" will choose option D (all three colours), which is the most common wrong answer.

A table maps items to attributes (festival to colour, train to platform, student to sport). A character observes one attribute and cannot determine which item it corresponds to, even after checking the table. You must identify which attribute values are shared by multiple items (making identification impossible) and which are unique (making identification certain).

Ten students each get two attempts at a 200m sprint. Their "result" is the faster of the two. From a table of 20 times, you need to find who came 3rd. This question builds a crucial skill: deriving a new value from raw data (the result), then ranking all 10 to answer a specific placement question.

Two-attempt competition ranking questions appear in OC TS exams and reward students with careful, systematic table-reading habits. The most common errors are using the wrong attempt (the second attempt instead of the best), or ranking only the four answer options without checking all ten students.

The examiner is testing whether students can apply a stated rule (fastest time counts) across a multi-row table and then rank the derived values correctly. The four answer options are all students with similar times (24.8–25.2 seconds), so students who only check those four and miss that Student 9 (24.5) is 2nd and Student 5 (24.8) is 3rd will arrive at the wrong answer.

A table gives multiple attempts or scores for each competitor. A rule specifies which value counts (e.g. best, average, total). You must apply the rule to each row to get a "result", then rank all results. The question asks for a specific placing (e.g. 3rd, last). The answer options contain several students with close results to maximise confusion.

Cecilia only likes lemon and grape juice. A table shows which juices are available on which days. One day has no lemon and no grape — that is the day she will not visit. Simple table filtering, but the "not" in the question catches students who find the days she DOES visit instead.

"Which day will X NOT do Y?" questions with a filter condition appear regularly in OC TS. They combine table reading with a two-step logic: (1) narrow the valid options (only lemon and grape), then (2) find the day where none of the valid options appear. The negation ("not visit") is the most common source of error.

The examiner is testing whether students can apply a preference filter before reading the schedule. Students who simply look for "any juice available on Thursday" (and find orange and apple) will think Thursday is fine — unless they first crossed off the juices Cecilia dislikes.

A paragraph describes someone's preferences or restrictions (e.g. does not like X or Y). A table maps items to days. The question asks which day the person will NOT be able to satisfy their preference. Options are days of the week. One day will have only the excluded items.

A magic school has a 4-day timetable with 3 classes per day. Wands are needed for spells, charms, and herbs only. This week, Wednesday is cancelled. How many wand-required classes remain? This question layers two filters: first identify which class names need a wand, then remove an entire day's worth of classes before counting.

Multi-filter timetable counting questions appear frequently in OC TS. They combine a subject filter (which classes need equipment) with a schedule exception (one day cancelled, a class moved, etc.). Students who forget to apply the cancellation and count all weeks of wand classes will get 5 instead of 4 — a classic off-by-one error that comes from not re-reading the exception condition.

The examiner is testing whether students can apply two separate conditions at once: (1) only count wand-required classes, and (2) exclude Wednesday's classes this week. Students who forget condition (2) will count Wednesday's spells class and arrive at 5. Students who misidentify which classes need a wand (including broom flight or farsight) will also get the wrong total.

A timetable grid lists subjects for each day and time slot. A rule specifies which subjects require a certain item or meet a certain condition (e.g. need a wand). An exception modifies the schedule for the current week (cancelled day, extra class). You must count how many classes satisfy the condition after applying the exception.

History only appears in List 1, so it must be your List 1 subject — that immediately locks arts out. Then map English and Science to their remaining possible lists, and check which of the answer options can never be reached from any free list.

Multi-list constrained-choice questions (pick one from each list, some already committed) appear regularly in OC TS at easy-to-medium difficulty. Students who try to reason in their head get confused; drawing a quick grid with each scenario takes 30 seconds and guarantees the right answer.

The examiner checks whether students can systematically assign committed subjects to specific lists (locking those lists), then enumerate all remaining valid scenarios to determine which option is permanently blocked.

A student must choose one subject from each of four lists, and has already committed to three subjects. Students must find which of the answer options can never be assigned to any remaining free list under any valid assignment.

John needs a red and a green robot. He can buy a pack of three, and his friend will swap a pink robot for a green one. Which pack lets him walk away with both colours he needs? The trick is recognising the two-step route: get red from the pack directly, and use the pink in the same pack to trade for green.

Two-step resource acquisition questions — where you combine a direct purchase with a secondary exchange — appear regularly in OC TS. They test whether students can track multiple conditions simultaneously. The most common mistake is finding a pack with ONE of the needed items and stopping there, without checking whether the second need can be met through the trade.

The examiner is testing whether students can apply two conditions at once: (1) the pack must contain red, and (2) the pack must contain pink (to trade for green). Pack 1 has red but no pink, so it fails condition 2. Pack 3 has green and pink but no red — students who see 'green is in the pack' stop early and miss that red is still needed. Pack 4 has pink but no red. Only Pack 2 satisfies both conditions.

A table lists options (packs, bundles, selections) and what each contains. A separate trade or exchange rule lets you convert one item into another. You need to find the single option that satisfies ALL the requirements — both through direct contents and through the available trade. Read the requirements first, then check each option systematically.