Codebusters Test Curriculum Framework 2

Question 1

In the Codebusters Science Olympiad event, which cipher uses a 5x5 grid of letters where I and J share one cell?

Accepted Answer

Playfair cipher

Answer

The Playfair cipher uses a 5x5 key square where I and J are combined into a single cell to fit the 26-letter alphabet.

Question 2

When analyzing a monoalphabetic substitution cipher in Codebusters, which letter in English plaintext has the highest expected frequency?

Accepted Answer

E

Answer

The letter E is the most frequently occurring letter in standard English text, appearing approximately 13% of the time.

Question 3

Which Codebusters cipher type encrypts by writing the message along multiple diagonal rails and reading off row by row?

Accepted Answer

Rail fence cipher

Answer

The rail fence cipher writes plaintext diagonally across a specified number of 'rails' and reads the ciphertext row by row.

Question 4

In the Codebusters curriculum, an 'aristocrat' differs from a 'patristocrat' primarily because:

Accepted Answer

It retains the original word spacing from the plaintext

Answer

An aristocrat preserves the original word spacing, while a patristocrat groups all letters into fixed-length blocks, removing word boundaries.

Question 5

The Vigenère cipher is considered polyalphabetic because it:

Accepted Answer

Encrypts each letter using a different Caesar shift based on a repeating keyword

Answer

The Vigenère cipher applies a different Caesar shift to each letter based on the corresponding letter of a repeating keyword, creating multiple cipher alphabets.

Codebusters Test Practice Test

Codebusters Test Practice Test

Codebusters Test Curriculum Framework 2