Aon motionChallenge: Plan Ahead and Avoid Unnecessary Moves

Aon motionChallenge preparation should focus on planning a route before making moves, not moving objects as quickly as possible. Aon's official preparation page describes a six-minute complex-planning assessment in which you solve puzzles by overcoming barriers between a starting state and a desired state. Your own instructions remain authoritative for controls and scoring.

For candidates preparing for technical roles, the useful habit is to explain what each move enables and what it might block. This article uses an original puzzle and a move-review method, not copied assessment items.

What Aon motionChallenge confirms—and what it does not

The practical answer: learn the allowed moves, inspect the goal, identify the blocker, and choose a destination that preserves the remaining route. Minimizing wasted moves is a preparation method; the public overview does not provide a universal points-per-move formula or hiring cutoff.

Aon's description establishes the broad planning task and the published six-minute duration. It does not establish that every invitation uses the same layout, that an undo is free, or that you may skip a difficult puzzle. Do not import those rules from a different Aon game or a commercial practice package.

The broader Aon assessment guide covers the surrounding module mix. Here, the question is narrower: how do you replace trial-and-error moves with a defensible plan? Arithmetic speed drills and memory exercises train different tasks, even when they appear in the same invitation.

This is official-mechanics guidance plus original practice, not an employer-process report. No live motionChallenge was taken for this article, and comparable independent candidate reports were insufficient to establish a standard employer configuration. A reported score from another applicant would not resolve your interface rules or required result.

Use the instruction stage to learn the move contract

Before worrying about speed, determine what counts as one move. Does a click select an object, move it one space, or send it to a destination? Can an object pass through another object? Is the goal a particular location, an arrangement, or a cleared route? A plan is only valid under the rules you actually received.

Separate selection mistakes from reasoning mistakes. If you intend to move a blocker into a bay but the interaction moves a different object, more mental planning will not fix the control problem. In an available example, watch the resulting state after one action and confirm that it matches your prediction.

Aon's assessment-taker guidance describes introductions, demonstrations, and example exercises before timed testing. Use that explanation stage deliberately. Check permitted aids, reset or undo behavior, submission, and whether the timer applies to a puzzle or the whole module.

Do not test an uncertain control repeatedly during the scored section. A missing capability is a constraint: if there is no undo, plan accordingly; if a move cannot be reversed, identify that before committing. If the written rules remain unclear, ask through the invitation's support route before starting rather than infer permission from this article.

Solve an original corridor puzzle in four moves

Consider this synthetic practice puzzle, unrelated to Aon's proprietary boards. Four locations form a corridor: L—C—R—G. A side bay P connects only to C. Token A starts at L; token B starts at C. The goal is to place A at G.

One move sends one token along one connecting edge into an empty location. Tokens cannot jump, share a location, or leave the board. All locations except L and C are initially empty. There is no requirement to place B at a goal.

The corridor looks blocked, but the bay gives the blocker somewhere useful to wait:

Move	Resulting state and reason
1: B: C → P	C becomes empty without occupying the future route through R and G.
2: A: L → C	The target enters the cleared corridor.
3: A: C → R	The target advances while the blocker stays outside its route.
4: A: R → G	The goal is reached.

Why are four moves minimal? A must traverse three corridor edges. It cannot traverse the first while B occupies C, so at least one blocker move is necessary. The four-move plan meets that lower bound. This proves optimality for these rules, not for an unseen assessment puzzle.

Now change one assumption: suppose the bay were unavailable. The proof no longer supplies a valid solution. The correct response is to recompute reachability, not keep repeating the familiar sequence. Good preparation includes recognizing when a previously successful plan depends on a feature that has disappeared.

Understand why a legal move can be unnecessary

Suppose you begin by moving B: C → R. That move is legal and clears C, so it feels productive. But R is the next location that A will need. You relocated the obstruction instead of removing it from the route.

If A stays at L, you can recover by moving B: R → C, then B: C → P, followed by the three moves of A. The complete sequence now uses six moves instead of four. The first two moves form a detour that returns the board to the starting state.

An even more confusing choice is to move A into C immediately after sending B to R. Both tokens then occupy the corridor, and the blocker cannot return to C until the target retreats. You must reason about the complete state, not just the position of the target token.

This distinction is useful beyond puzzles. A locally attractive action can consume the space needed for the next operation. When reviewing a move, ask two questions: “What constraint did it remove?” and “What constraint did it create?” An action with no clear answer is a candidate for removal from your practice plan.

Work backward without pretending every action reverses

Backward reasoning starts from a necessary condition for success. In the corridor exercise, A must reach G from R, and R must therefore be available at the relevant moment. To reach R, it first needs C; that identifies the blocker problem.

You do not need to imagine the entire board running backward. Instead, identify a small chain of conditions: final position, last move, required empty location, blocker destination. That keeps the plan short enough to remember while preserving its logic.

Distinguish a necessary condition from a sufficient plan. “The corridor must be clear” explains a requirement but not how to achieve it. “Move B into P, then move A along the corridor” supplies executable actions. Rehearse both the reason and the sequence.

If a practice puzzle includes irreversible actions, a backward sketch must respect them. An object that disappears at a destination cannot later be used to open a gate unless the rules explicitly allow it. Before the first irreversible move, verify the next required condition and the objects still available afterward.

Detect loops by recording the whole state

A loop occurs when you return to a previously visited state without obtaining a relevant new capability. In the six-move detour, the first two moves restore both tokens to their original locations. Looking only at the last moved token can hide that return.

For untimed preparation, write states as pairs: (A=L, B=C), then (A=L, B=R), then (A=L, B=C). The repeated pair makes the wasted segment visible. In a richer puzzle, include every rule-relevant object, orientation, switch, or remaining resource in the state description.

Do not count two positions as identical if a gate changed or a consumable was used. Conversely, swapping indistinguishable objects may leave the meaningful state unchanged. The right state representation depends on the rules; this is why memorizing screenshots is weaker than understanding the transition model.

You can verify small original exercises with breadth-first search when every move has equal cost. That is an offline learning aid, not a tool to use during an assessment. The point is to compare your plan with a known shortest solution and identify why your extra actions appeared necessary.

Build a move-waste ledger, not a guessed score

After an original practice attempt, record whether the goal was reached, total moves, repeated states, and the first action whose consequence you did not predict. These observations separate inefficient reasoning from control mistakes and failed solutions.

For the corridor puzzle, one ledger entry might read: “Solved; six moves; two-move loop; moved B to R before checking where A needed to go next.” The correction is concrete: inspect the next two target positions and the blocker destination before acting.

A different entry might be: “Planned four moves; selected A instead of B; execution diverged on move one.” That calls for interface familiarization rather than a harder puzzle. A third might say: “Correct route; lost the next action after every click.” Rehearse a compact verbal plan, such as “bay first, target along corridor.”

Keep time and moves separate. A long planning pause with four clean actions and a rapid six-move detour are different failures to examine. Neither ledger establishes Aon's scoring weights. Improvement in your own exercise is evidence of improved execution on that exercise, not a predicted percentile or pass result.

Add speed after your plans become reliable

Begin with a few untimed original puzzles whose rules you can state exactly. Explain your first move before executing it, then verify the next state. Once you can solve them without accidental loops, shorten the planning window while keeping the same observation method.

Avoid measuring progress by memorized replay alone. Change the blocker position, remove a bay, or change the goal, then solve again. A familiar four-move sequence is not useful if you cannot recognize when it is invalid. Transfer means noticing the structure, not remembering the coordinates.

For a timed rehearsal, record both solved tasks and avoidable moves. If faster execution creates more loops, isolate the step you rushed: reading the goal, inspecting the blocker destination, or checking the result of a move. Repair that step before increasing difficulty.

During the actual assessment, use only the controls and aids permitted in your instructions. Do not assume you may skip, restart, pause, take screenshots, or consult another person. Aon's guidance recommends arranging adjustments in advance; contact the inviting organization if access needs or technical problems could affect completion.

Sources and Further Reading

• Aon: Prepare for your Online Assessment: official motionChallenge description, published duration, introductory exercises, permitted-aid guidance, and adjustments.

Official information reviewed October 4, 2026. Puzzle rules, move counts, and review methods above are original preparation examples, not observed live-test scoring.