This is an interesting situation. I almost wish I would need to take this test…
(Note: that’s only a thought exercise, what I would do given my own experience, you’d have to adapt to your situation/preferences to do what you think useful).
I would do two things:
- Prepare places to be dispersed alphabetic memory palaces, that I could fill up with soundalike mnemonics.
- Set up anki (prepare an empty deck and a “basic reverse” note type with three fields “english”, “mystery language” and “mnemonic”)
((Note on 2: it’s only if you receive the words several days before. If you have to memorize the words and pass the test on the same day, then you can just forget everything I say about anki/spaced repetition system SRS, because you won’t have the time to use such an app.))
Alphabetic memory palaces
Alphabetic because, since you’re doing a pure “translation” (or rather correspondance) exercise, it means that the hints to recall are: the first letter(s) and how it’s spelled (meaning how it sounds – to you, nobody cares if you have a good prononciation in this context).
Example (completely random I’m just writing the first thing coming into my head):
Direction “mystery language” to English: you have the word “uzgluk”. Hmm it begins with U so it’s in the supermarket “super U” and it sounds like a hen (gluk gluk), oh yes, there was a flock of hens in the supermarket, when I first heard them I thought there was somebody with a phone with a chicken ringtone, but there really was a flock of hens in the electronic department laying eggs among the printers! So uzgluk = ringtone.
In the other direction (English to “mystery language”): ringtone… where did I hear a ringtone? Oh in the super U, so it begins with U and it was a chicken ringtone (gluk gluk), so it must be ugluk. Then you notice while reviewing that you forgot the “z” in uZgluk so you add a bee buZZing around panicking the hens who are clucking ever louder and making a mess. Ringtone = uzgluk
Don’t lose time getting fancy/clever, the first thing that come into your head is usually the mnemonic your brain will remember (even if it’s a “stupid” one).
Anki (or other SRS of your choice, speak about anki because it’s the one I know)
Put all words in anki (or whatever space repetition software of your choice) and drill.
Again, no need to lose time going fancy. A simple “basic reverse” note is enough, with a supplementary field for the mnemonic if you feel you need to write it down.
Ideally you get the list of words in a file (not printed on paper) and you can import it directly into anki to not lose time creating the cards one by one.
With a basic-reverse note type, each note would create two cards. You’d have card 1: Question: uzgluk. Answer: ringtone + supplementary field with mnemonics “hens laying eggs in super U” (+ bee). And card 2: Question: ringtone. Answer: uzgluk + supplementary field with mnemonics (“hens laying eggs in super U”).
The mnemonic shouldn’t appear with the question, you want it on the card only in a hint field or a normal field on the answer side to be able to consult it again if you forgot it.
About other alphabets:
Given the information we have, I think they’ll choose a less known language but written with the Latin alphabet. The point is to choose a language that the candidates probably don’t know, so the test would be somewhat fair (there’s a chance that somebody already knows German, but Zulu probably not).
They do not care about the language itself. They are testing to see what strategies you come up with to learn something in a short time frame, how you tackle dealing with a large amount of information, how you analyse and solve a problem. You should be prepared to memorize, but you probably should also be prepared to explain what you did and why.
That being said, with shape mnemonics and a memory palace (and the Wikipedia/IPA page of said script) it wouldn’t take a lot of time to learn a new alphabet (or abjad). If you worry about the possibility, and have no experience with learning another script (sometimes it’s a psychological barrier for people who deem a language “hard” just because they see different letters), you could learn other alphabets/adjad (cyrillic, arabic, etc.) for fun (yes I find it fun, I may be strange). The aim is not really to know the alphabet, but to train the process to see that it isn’t that hard and know you can to it quickly if needed.
But I really think it’s unlikely, so it’s probably not the best use of your time.
If you have 7 days, and are allowed to use an SRS, my advice would be to set up anki (or an equivalent app) if you don’t already use one. And to get familiar with it to not lose time with technical difficulties during the test. You need to know the very basic options, like how to create a deck and the cards, (and ideally how to create cards in bulk, in case you have a luxury of receiving the list of words in an electronic format and can import all words directly into your SRS system).
Also train using alphabetic memory palaces and train coming up with mnemonics (without experience the process can be slow). No tricks are going to replace practicing. Pull up a list of random words and try to memorize them, giving yourself a short time limit. Test yourself, see how well you do, and what problems you have. Then solve these problems to make your strategy better and try again. You’re also training to adapt your strategy to new problems coming your way.
that she literally melts… Nothing left except a puddle on the floor (and maybe her boyfriend is horrified and cries “nooo gisi!!” 
)