So as far as the diagram exercises go, about four or five were very, very easy. A few were tricky, and a few were downright devilish. The ones I struggled with were 5-4, 5-5, 5-6, and 5-8. I was able to solve 4 and 6 but it took a lot of time. 5 was ridiculous. Kudos to anyone who solved it. On 8, I was trying to solve it with something more immediately forcing. I missed that you had to first make a preparatory move. I think if I had realized it, I might have been able to solve it.
On 4, I found a quicker mate: 4. Rg5+ ... Rf5 5. Bxf5+
That being said, the text answer is not only more elegant, but fits the theme of the chapter all the way to the end, which is likely why it was chosen. It just better illustrates the ideas.
Test Exercises:
Exercises 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, and 5-5 I solved in about 15 seconds total. Exercises 5-4 and 5-6 took a little longer, but were still easy.
Exercise 5-7 (two stars)
This one got me. I got the first part and earned one point. I failed to find the correct follow up, which is moderately lengthy. I kept trying to solve it by playing my queen to g7 for the check. It was supposed to be Qf4+. That being said, I still found mate in most of the lines, but there was one line that just went to deep for me to solve and started involving rook checks. I was unable to visualize it fully enough to the end. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe not. I could plug it into an engine to find out, or play out all the moves over the board some more, but...meh. I'm fine with having missed the better solution. I should have seen it.
Exercise 5-8 (one star)
Easy. I swear I've seen this one elsewhere (note: in the solution, Yusupov indeed calls it a "famous position"). You either mate with the rook or bishop, depending on where black moves after the double check.
Exercise 5-9 (two stars)
Took about two minutes. A fun one!
Qd8+ as you'd expect ... Kxd8
Bg5++ ... Ke8
Rd8+ ... Kf7
e6+! if King takes, Nf4 then Ne5#
...if King goes to g6, then Nf4#
...if Bxe6 then Ne5#
And finally, if he doesn't take the queen sac, then you play e6 again and mate follows with the same patterns as if he had accepted it.
I got this one and every single variation 100% correct except for the ...Kh6 4. Qh4# bit. I failed to see that the knight was blocking my dark-squared bishop from covering the h6 square, so I overlooked that flight square as an option for black. Visualization error.
Exercise 5-10 (one star)
Super easy. But cool to see it with a knight, since bishops seem to be more common.
Exercise 5-11 (one star)
A fun one, but also easy. Just make sure your knight goes to f5 and not e6, or it won't work :)
Exercise 5-12 (one star)
A gorgeous, zig-zag patterned mate. Similar to what was illustrated in Diagram 5-4 earlier in the text. Just lovely.
My Score: 15/16 "Excellent"
(lost one point on 5-7)
Conclusion:
Very glad to have done well on this chapter. Overall, I think I learned a few new patterns, as noted above. Some of the exercises in the chapter text were much harder than the test exercises. I'm not sure why this is. I suppose Yusupov sometimes offers a very difficult selection when he feels it properly illustrates a point, but the test positions themselves seem to be geared toward a more specific level. Or maybe such speculation is complete garbage. I haven't a clue. On to the next chapter!
I just love this photo from the book:
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