If the day before yesterday was Tuesday, when will Saturday be?
- (a)Today
- (b)Tomorrow
- (c)Day after tomorrow
- (d)Two days after tomorrow
Correct — C, Day after tomorrow. Anchor on today and count outwards. The day before yesterday was Tuesday, so yesterday was Wednesday and today is Thursday. Counting forward from Thursday: tomorrow is Friday, and the day after tomorrow is Saturday. So Saturday falls on the day after tomorrow. The reliable method is to write the run of days once — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday — and mark today's position in it, rather than trying to hold the offsets in your head. Two steps back from today lands on Tuesday and two steps forward lands on Saturday, which is a neat symmetry worth noticing as a check.
- (a)Today — Today is Thursday, two days after the Tuesday named in the stem. Saturday is two further days ahead.
- (b)Tomorrow — Tomorrow is Friday. This is the answer for a candidate who takes the day before yesterday to mean yesterday and shifts the whole chain back by one.
- (d)Two days after tomorrow — Two days after tomorrow is Sunday, one step too far. It comes from counting today as the first of the forward steps instead of as the starting point.
Every relative-day question is a small number line with today at zero. The day before yesterday is minus two, yesterday minus one, tomorrow plus one, the day after tomorrow plus two, and two days after tomorrow plus three. Once the given day is placed at its offset, today's name follows, and then any other day can be read off. Errors almost always come from mis-numbering one of those labels rather than from the arithmetic.
The phrase that costs marks is 'day before yesterday', which is two days back and not one. The other is 'two days after tomorrow', which is three days ahead and not two — the option is placed in the list precisely to catch a candidate who has drifted by one step. Writing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday in a row and putting a mark under Thursday takes five seconds and removes both risks.
- Day before yesterday is two days back; the day after tomorrow is two days forward; two days after tomorrow is three days forward.
- With the day before yesterday as Tuesday, today is Thursday.
- Counting forward: Friday is tomorrow, Saturday is the day after tomorrow.
- Today sits exactly midway between the named Tuesday and the asked Saturday, two steps either side.
- Writing the run of days out once is faster and safer than holding the offsets mentally.
- Tuesday — the day before yesterday, two days back
- Wednesday — yesterday
- Thursday — today
- Friday — tomorrow
- Saturday — the day after tomorrow, which is the answer
Two steps back to the named Tuesday, two steps forward to the asked Saturday.
- Reading 'day before yesterday' as yesterday and losing a day.
- Reading 'two days after tomorrow' as two days ahead of today rather than three.
- Counting today as the first step when moving forward.
Asked as a two-step offset puzzle whose four options are all adjacent days, so a one-day drift in either direction lands on a printed answer.
March 1, 2008 was Saturday. Which day was it on March 1, 2002?
- (a) Thursday
- (b) Friday
- (c) Saturday
- (d) Sunday
Answer(b) Friday
The same counting on a longer scale, where the shift has to be worked out through odd days and leap years rather than by naming five consecutive days.
- practice — not a real PYQ
If the day after tomorrow is Monday, what day was it the day before yesterday?
- (a)Wednesday
- (b)Thursday
- (c)Friday
- (d)Saturday
Answer(b) Thursday — the day after tomorrow being Monday makes today Saturday, so the day before yesterday was Thursday.
- practice — not a real PYQ
If today is Wednesday, what will be the day two days after tomorrow?
- (a)Friday
- (b)Saturday
- (c)Sunday
- (d)Monday
Answer(b) Saturday — tomorrow is Thursday, and two days after that is Saturday.