DLAB cheat sheet

DLAB Language Aptitude

• The DLAB is a constructed-language aptitude test: every question is answered in a language you have never seen, so success depends on inferring rules from the material given in each item, not on prior vocabulary.

• Test structure is five subtests: audio stress patterns, visual stress patterns, morphological rules (word formation), syntactic rules (sentence word order), and a final section combining morphology and syntax with a larger invented vocabulary.

• Stress-pattern items: the invented language marks stress by a rule keyed to syllable structure (for example, stress the penultimate syllable unless the final syllable is 'heavy'); identify the rule from the labeled examples, then apply it to the unlabeled options.

• Visual stress items present written words with stress marks; audio stress items present spoken words only, so the same underlying rule must be extracted from sound alone - rehearse holding a syllable pattern in memory while comparing options.

• Morphological items: each item supplies a small set of root words plus derived forms with stated meanings; the task is to isolate which affix carries which meaning component (plural, diminutive, agent, past tense) and recombine them for the target.

• Syntactic items: derive word order (subject-object-verb versus subject-verb-object), modifier placement (adjective before or after noun), and case or particle marking from the example sentences, then translate the new sentence using exactly those positions.

• The final combined section gives the largest vocabulary and the most complex sentences; budget time to build a mental lexicon table (root, affix, meaning) before attempting translations, because items build on repeated roots.

• Scoring is by raw number correct converted to a scaled score; there is no penalty for guessing, so every item should receive an answer, and pacing matters because items are timed within sections.

• Affix logic is compositional: a form like 'root + suffix A + suffix B' means the base meaning modified by A then by B; test each candidate affix against at least two examples before assigning it a meaning.