Cannon Interception Test

Company Preparation Courses IMC Round 1 – Online Assessment Cannon Interception Test

Cognitive ~6 min

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Overview

The second NeurOlympics game measures visual anticipation: predicting where something will be, not where it is, and committing at the right moment. Balls appear at six spouts along the top of the screen, hold there for about a second, then fall at a speed you read off their colour: blue slowest, yellow one and a half times as fast, red twice as fast. A new ball arrives every 3.6 seconds on a fixed clock, whether you have dealt with the last one or not. You have four cannons, two in each bottom corner: a horizontal one, whose shot flies level just above the ground and stops short of the centre, and a diagonal one, whose shot climbs at a shallow angle and reaches five of the six spouts. You fire them from the keyboard, middle fingers on 1 and 0 for the horizontal cannons, index fingers on Q and O for the diagonal ones. The further from its cannon a shot meets a ball, and so the higher up the screen, the more the hit is worth; a shot that hits nothing costs you points and leaves that cannon reloading for a moment, while a shot that connects frees it straight away. That is the whole game: choose a cannon while the ball is still sitting at its spout, rather than firing at everything. The exercises work up in that order: a round with the diagonal cannons alone, a round with the horizontal ones alone, then the Full game with all four. You pick how long a run lasts, 25, 50 or 75 balls, and 25 is about a minute and a half. The Challenge is the exception: it runs until the first ball reaches the ground, and it is the only exercise with a leaderboard.

Example: meeting the ball far from the cannon

The Full game, part 1. A yellow ball drops from the third spout and the player fires the right diagonal (O): it meets the ball three spouts from its corner, +400. Then a red ball, the fastest colour, at the second spout: the player fires O a quarter of a second before it even drops, and meets it at the top of the diagonal’s reach, +500.

Example animation

Ball 7 / 258 / 25 Hits 5 / 66 / 77 / 8 Points 1,8502,2502,750

Left → 1 Left ↗ Q Right ↖ O Right ← 0

1,850 points 2,250 points 2,750 points

Hit: a green burst with the points, and the cannon is loaded again at once. Its light only stays grey while a shot is still in the air or after one that hit nothing. A shot that hits nothing costs 50; a ball that reaches the ground scores nothing.

This is a looping animation of the game screen, not the live game. Play Now

Game Phases

Read the ball A ball appears at a spout and holds there for about a second. Its colour tells you how fast it will fall: blue takes 4.3 seconds to reach the ground, yellow 2.9, red 2.2. That second at the spout is your time to choose a cannon.

Pick the far diagonal A diagonal shot meets each lane at one height only, higher the further the lane is from its cannon. So the diagonal from the far corner meets a ball high up and scores most: 100 more for every spout further out, up to 500. It has to leave early, sometimes before the ball drops. The cannon beside the ball is the opposite case: its shot crosses low and gets there almost at once, so you wait; fire it too soon and the shot passes under the ball.

Only a wasted shot costs you the cannon A shot that hits nothing leaves its cannon reloading for about 1.5 seconds (1 second in part 2) and its light turns grey until it is ready. A shot that hits frees the cannon the moment it lands, so a good hit never keeps you from the next ball. The horizontal cannons (always 100 a hit) are the quick answer for a ball that is already low on their own side.

Build up The first two exercises hand you one pair of cannons at a time: the diagonals only (Q and O), then the horizontals only (1 and 0), one ball at a time so you can take the timing apart. All three colours fall from the first exercise on, so reading the speed is part of it throughout. After that the Full game gives you all four, with the reload after a wasted shot dropping from 1.5 to 1 second for the last 40% of the balls. Every one of them runs at the length you pick: 25 balls, about a minute and a half, or 50 or 75 when you want a longer sitting. The results show points, balls hit per colour, average points per hit, diagonal share and missed shots.

We are not affiliated with BrainsFirst or IMC. The Cannon Interception Test is our own practice game, built to train the skill that NeurOlympics game 2 measures; all information provided is for educational purposes to help students prepare for interviews.

Scoring

100–500

Points per hit A horizontal hit is always 100. A diagonal hit is worth 100 for a ball next to its own cannon and 100 more for every spout further out, up to 500 at the far end of its reach, so the balls you take early, across the field, are the ones that pay.

−50

Missed shot A shot that hits nothing costs you 50 points, so fire once you have picked a ball rather than on reflex. A ball that reaches the ground scores nothing, but it costs you nothing either.

Reload

Only after a miss A hit loads the cannon again the moment the shot lands, so you are never held back by good play. A shot that hits nothing is the one that costs you the cannon: about 1.5 seconds in part 1 and 1 second in part 2, with its light grey until it is ready. The other three cannons stay available throughout, so while one reloads, look for the ball that suits another corner. Your best score, run count and last ten scores are kept per exercise.

Top

Challenge leaderboard The Challenge mixes all three colours on a clock that tightens from 3.6 to 2.2 seconds, until the first ball reaches the ground. Same points as every other exercise, missed shots included, and its points go on the Top Scores board, which keeps each player's best run.

Only the Challenge has a leaderboard. In the other exercises the target is every ball hit, a high diagonal share and no missed shots; an average above 300 points a hit means your diagonals are meeting the balls far from their corner. Your results break the run down per colour, per cannon, per lane and first half against second, so you can see which corner you are neglecting. If you lean on the horizontal cannons and let a ball fall past the height where a diagonal could have met it, a Watch out card pauses play until you press a key, once per part at most. Finish early ends a run and shows the results for the balls so far; those runs are logged but never count as your best. A 25-ball run takes about a minute and a half; 50 and 75 are there for stamina. Your best score is kept per exercise and per length.