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The number which best completes the sequence below is 2 9 5 13 10 19 17 ?

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Jesta23:
What the fuck.

I am a pretty smart guy, with a much higher education then what is needs for this job. And some of these questions even stumped me. How does any joe schmo answer these things right?

The worst one I saw was .
The Number Which Best Completes The Sequence Below Is:1 1 3 2 4 6 5 25?
(click to show/hide)27
square the number, add 2,subtract 1, square the number... etc..
How is someone supposed to find that pattern when only given 7 numbers to work off of? Who other then a college student would even think to find the square portion of this pattern?

Did you figure it out? Keep in mind the test was 140 questions long and your only given an hour to do it. So you have less then a minute each question to figure it out.

fohfoh:
I recall seeing this and how you do it is you find the differences between numbers and find a sequence that goes with it. So for the title...

+7,-4,+8,-3,+9,-2

See a pattern?

Though I can't figure out what it is... basic logic says the next number should be +10 and the one after is -1. And by pattern I mean algebraic formula.
(click to show/hide)+0, +2, -1, +2, +2, -1, + 20 ... +2, -1 repeats, but 0, 2, 20 don't. So you have to figure something else out. (usually weird number spreads are always exponents or roots

By the way, I'm in no ways a mathy guy. The highest I've gotten in math since high school and post secondary (calculus etc.) was a 70%. (Everything else was in the 50s to 60s)

Seriously I've never seen the sequence, didn't recall high school math until I figured it out.

Idk... in my mind I just went, "How is it different", "By what is it different", "Why is it different", "What causes the differences"

Or something like that. My mind isn't very efficient.

Jesta23:
Thats the point, I am a "mathy" kind of guy, and some of these even gave me pause.

I'm applying for a entry level position, that pays about 1/3 of what I'm currently making. The only reason I am trying to get this job is because they will work around my class schedule and pay 90% of tuition and books.

So my point is, if its somewhat challenging for someone completely overqualified, how can the average person that would normally apply for this job stand any chance?
Maybe they are only looking for people like me though, that are only in it to get finished in school.

fohfoh:
I recall seeing sequences like these on IQ tests that I've randomly been doing since like... elementary school. I figured out some of these using the "problem solving modules" in grade 5 and 6. 99% of the time, these things are full of crap. Some of them make use of info that you learned when young but don't remember it. (ie: long division, number sequences, random knowledge etc.)

But seriously sometimes employers do this to see what types of questions you got right, or what logic you came to try and derive the information to try and test to see how you tried, and whether or not you have the basic deduction skills to be "taught".

MammalSauce:
Don't you learn patterns in like the sixth grade?

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