As with the other claim categories on page 1, this one has to be scanned to see if the criteria for a claim match personal circumstances. Presumably those living in a ‘prescribed zone’ would know it and would be looking for this section. The rest of Canadians would have to infer what a prescribed zone was using the three territories as examples–they would probably characterize a prescribed zone as cold, remote, and north of sixty. (Actually a great swath of Canada, including the northern half of most provinces and Labrador is designated as ‘prescribed.’) Those in doubt are directed to the extensive alphabetical list of place names in the publication Places in Prescribed Zones.

The actual task of calculating and entering an amount is a quantitative task. The amounts used in the calculation have to be located in the text, based on a match of at least four features (live in the prescribed zone, more than six months, in a row, in a dwelling you maintain). The question asked at this point is “If I intend to live alone in a one-room cabin in Nunavut for the first seven months of the year, what is my deduction for living in a prescribed zone?”

The operation, multiplication, has to be inferred from the term ‘for each day.’ The task is made more difficult because the ‘months’ needed to qualify for a claim, now have to be converted to ‘days’ for the calculation. We will treat the number of days as the result of a previous task rather than just being ‘given.’

Type of operation: multiplication (3). Specificity of operation: numbers not in row and column (1); numbers are not adjacent (+1); labels present, numbers identified without a search (+0); operation is easily inferred (+1); numbers identified in a previous task (+1); units require no transformation (+0); total rating 4. No distractors.