Are you as smart as a spy? Test yourself with GCHQ's 'toughest ever' Christmas quiz

Do you have what it takes to be a spy? Put your skills to the test with this year's fiendishly difficult GCHQ Christmas quiz.

The UK spy agency, which opened a Manchester base on Albert Square opposite the town hall in 2019, sent its Christmas card with the challenge, fronted by a rare image of a snow-covered Bletchley Park, to more than 1,000 secondary schools this week.

It includes seven increasingly complex puzzles that test skills such as codebreaking, maths and analysis, and encourages pupils to work as a team to reveal the final festive message. A maths-based bonus puzzle has also been included, which has been described as the toughest to date.

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The answers to the seven puzzles, pictured below each reveal a word which can follow 'Christmas'. So get your thinking cap on and see if you've got what it takes.

Question 1:

Question 2:

Question 3:

Question 4:

Question 5:

Question 6:

Question 7:

Question 8 (The hardest one yet):

GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler said: "Puzzles have been at the heart of GCHQ from the start. These skills represent our historic roots in cryptography and encryption and continue to be important to our modern-day mission to keep the country safe.

"GCHQ's history at Bletchley Park is represented in this year's Christmas card as a reminder of the role this historic place has played in our wartime efforts but also as home to this year's AI Safety Summit.

"Our puzzlers have created a challenge which is designed for a mix of minds to solve. Whether