Did any of the other word questions have answers based upon the linguistic properties of the words (rather than on the meanings of the words)? If not, then you evidently did fail at that portion of pattern recognition.
Be fair - for math patterns you're expected to choose the simplest fit. For language, the highest-order fit (e.g. meaning, not letter count). Why? Its cultural - thats how IQ tests are done.
That's true, but I don't see why it is a problem. You typically get example questions in these sorts of tests - it should be trivial to understand the types of fit that the test is requesting.
To be frank, I have very little time for people who claim to have overthought a test. Typically, they've thought enough to complicate the simple answer, but haven't thought enough to realise why the simple answer is correct.
Its not always possible to know which kind of question you're answering. What is the odd one in this set? Is that a math question, or language? How far along you are in the test can change the desired outcome; I'm certain the strategy being tested switches mode as the test advances to cover more capable subjects.
Short answer: you have to be familiar with the culture of testing to do well. Anecdote: I got 95+ on the GRE entering graduate school; I took advanced subject tests in subjects I had never studied. All it took was a knowledge of how the test worked.
