01
Where the maths sits in the day
The online stage is split into three timed parts. The first measures concentration through digit-rule puzzles, where you apply a stated rule to a pair of numbers under pressure. The second is mental arithmetic. The third measures analytical thinking across twenty-five questions in ten minutes, decoding passcodes and finding words.
Only the arithmetic part is spoken. That single detail catches out most candidates, because almost all available preparation material is printed. Reading a sum and hearing a sum are different cognitive tasks: the printed version lets your eyes return to the numbers, while the spoken version forces you to hold them in working memory while you calculate.
02
The question types that appear
Candidate reports place the difficulty band roughly between 2 cubed and 27 × 29. In practice that means two-digit multiplication, exact division, squares and cubes, square roots, simple fractions of a number, percentages of round figures, and three- or four-digit addition and subtraction. Chained operations appear too — a division followed by a subtraction, or a percentage followed by an addition.
Alongside the pure arithmetic, Wizz Air is reported to use aviation-flavoured word problems: speed, distance and time, volumes, ratios, and large multiplications. There is also a separate advanced mathematics stage later in the assessment where paper and a calculator are permitted and the task shifts to rearranging algebraic equations. Do not confuse the two — the speed section rewards shortcuts, the advanced section rewards method.
03
How to prepare for a ten-second clock
Ten seconds is enough time for one clean route to the answer and nothing else. That means the preparation target is not raw calculation speed but route selection: recognising that 75% is “take a quarter off”, that × 25 is quartering ×100, that subtracting 973 is subtracting 1000 and repaying 27.
Track your average answer time, not just your score. If you are answering correctly at 9.2 seconds you are passing in practice and will fail on the day, because assessment-day nerves cost roughly a second per question. Build margin until your average sits near six seconds, then stop worrying about accuracy — it follows.