But, on the other hand, to ignore the details of this aspect almost entirely, strikes us as questionable. The white king, although sheltered in his fortress behind a row of pawns, is short of space. Black has a large number of pieces pointing straight at the white king's position. White's pieces are aimed at the centre and the queenside. All the positions are from actual games, mostly at the grandmaster level.
Many solutions begin with a spectacular response.
There is no suggested time limit but, usually, the solution can be found in a couple of minutes or less. In general, five of the six problems on each test were solved after only a few seconds of thought. There seemed to be one question per set, however, that provided much consternation. In fact, more times than not, our proposed solution was at least partially incorrect. To gain a better understanding of the type of problems presented on the test, here are a few of the ones that gave us pause to think.