Another oldie but goodie ...

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Stop and think about it and decide on your answer before you scroll down.

Correct answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you respond, "Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator"? Wrong answer.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend ... except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there.
This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross, but it is used by crocodiles and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively proves the theory that most professionals do not have the brains of a 4-year-old.

heh

but putting a giraffe in a refrigerator is a simple thing?

What with the double negative in the final sentence, isn't there a contradiction in this paragraph that might affect whether someone would even want to consult Anderson Worldwide?

Now that's embarrassing! Sheesh! My usual proofreading skills should've caught that immediately.
Clearly, 'disprove' should read 'prove'. I'm making the change.
By the bye, technically that doesn't count as a so-called double negative, since the negative elements occur in two separate phrases. In English a double negative would look, for example, like "I don't know nothing."
A double negative, normally a no-no in English (but sometimes called for and therefore grammatical), is standard in other languages (eg, French and Russian) when the proposition must be negated.

Question 2's "a refrigerator" is non-specific as respects question 1, so your wrong answer is actually the correct one.

Ya gots ta go wit da flo.
The universe (of discourse = of dis course, of course) consists of only one (= a) refrigerator.

If you insist... But then the correct answer becomes "You open the door, take the giraffe out if you need the room, put the elephant in, then close the door."

This thread reminds me of a military problem:

You are a lieutenant at a military base. The parking lot is covered in concrete and the colonel orders you to have a flagpole erected in the middle of the concrete. How do you do it?

The militarily correct answer: Go the the nearest sergeant and say, "Sergeant, erect that flagpole."

By the way... "You open the door, take the giraffe out if you need the room, put the elephant in, then close the door" responds to question 1's "This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way."

Can you explain why the answer to question 1 should demand simplicity but not the answer to question 2?

I think the whole exercise is flawed to enough of a degree to make it unsuitable for judging either professionals or kids.

Oh, I don't know...it certainly seems suitable for determining who's got a sense of humor...

Indeed.
But there's also food for thought and humor in the overthinking of it.

> ...there's also food for thought and humor in the overthinking of it.

Not to mention the taking it seriously.

Indubitably.

Laconic.

I used to love driving the Laconic State Parkway along the Hudson Valley. Beautiful scenery.

that road always makes me feel I'm a kid again, in the 1960's. love it.

I'm fond of the Merritt Parkway myself, partly for the absence of commercial distraction and partly for the smorgasbord of bridge designs.

It seems to me that the 't' and 'l' keys are closer together on your keyboard than on Grelber's...

Did you love the Hawthorne Traffic Circle as much as you love the rest of the road?

I, too, loved driving the Taconic through the Hudson Valley back when my wheels were Goodyears rather than Reeboks...breathtaking views!

What say you, Jon? It's practically your driveway.

I, also, have fond memories of the Taconic Parkway. When I was a kid, my parents and I spent summers in the Adirondacks and part of the (then) 8 hour journey was along the Taconic. The Thruway didn't exist yet and the Taconic was the only place that you didn't get slowed by truck traffic or having to go through small towns. I still appreciate its beauty but sections of it can be treacherous during winter because of the lack of shoulders.

heh

I just appreciated the joke, and took it from there!

I haven't traveled the Taconic much, but as a child in the late 1960's, we took a big family trip to NYC/WashDC (from South Dakota!), and sadly, our cameras were stolen from in front of the Met Museum of Art, so we have no pictorial history of the first part of our trip, which included the Taconic. but I had such strong body-memories of that place, without knowing where it was, and actually longed to know it again. a few years ago, some friends and I had occasion to go to NYC, and much to my delight I found myself on the Taconic, and immediately remembered the feeling of that road. a dream realized!

good times.

Ain't those sorts of memories great?! They make one all warm and fuzzy.*

Mine are mainly of Lake George throughout childhood summers and coming of age in the late '50s and early '60s. Aah, for the thrills and chills of yesteryear.

(* Saskatoon had a civic mascot called a "warm fuzzy" about a decade or so ago. It was a little 1-inch fluff-ball with googly eyes and feet with a little streamer labeled "Warm Fuzzy" used as a promotional gimmick.)

ok I'm picking nits but I can't help it, it's in my nature



This makes the basic assumption that there's one of each animal to consider. One elephant, specifically, there are no other elephants to attend the meeting. You could get into "all the animals" attend, but whether you want to interpret that as "one of each" or "EVERY", either 3 or 4 doesn't work, unless you're assuming "EVERY" and that you put ALL the elephants in the fridge, which isn't very intuitive.




Now you're stating "used by crocodiles" and "All the crocodiles", more than one. It wouldn't make much sense to have a river with one croc in it anyway.

Questions 1 and 2 also put at odds the question of whether or not to consider physical size and capacity of containers. If the fridge is big enough to hold a giraffe, who's to say it doesn't have space left for an elephant too?


The test isn't very fair. Its only purpose appears to be to make people feel dumb

RE The test isn't very fair. Its only purpose appears to be to make people feel dumb

And your point would be ...?

http://www.quizrocket.com/stupid-test/
http://armorgames.com/play/1469/the-stupid-test-1
http://armorgames.com/play/1469/the-stupid-test-2
http://armorgames.com/play/1469/the-stupid-test-3
http://armorgames.com/play/1469/the-stupid-test-4

and more like the original:

http://www.stupidtest.net/the-stupid-test/
but it gives you the answers. it need to be fill in the blank.

And here goest the next hour of your day:
http://www.thegamehomepage.com/play/the-stupidity-test/

What, you still have some of your day left? No problem I'm here to help you with that:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/365143

Jawohl!

Ok, try this one. (I hope I get all the details!)

You're hiking in a remote wilderness when you come to a fork in the road. Each of the two roads leads to a village, and each has a sentry posted at the fork. You have only the following information:

One road leads to a village populated by cannibals. They will certainly kill you. The other village is populated by friendly people who will feed and house you. You also know that one of the sentries always tells the truth, and one of them always lies. You are allowed to ask one of the sentries one question only. What question should you ask, and of which sentry, in order to insure that you choose the road to the friendly village?

Now, if I could only remember the question....

Hint: Think about what you don't know.

I'll be back in a month or so.

I don't understand this part. If I know which sentry is which, don't I also know which road to take?

Am I missing something?

ryck

You ask either sentry... If I were to ask you which road leads to the friendly village what would you answer?

Not quite. If the sentry answering was the liar, "se" would tell you the wrong road, but how do you know that sentry is lying? If it is the truthful sentry, how would you know to trust "se"?

The hint really applies to the above explanation.

No, you've just stumbled over the hint. And, you've ferreted out a universal truism: you're just as likely to be supplied with irrelevant information as to be not supplied with enough.

You ask either sentry, "if I ask the other sentry whether he is guarding the road leading to the friendly village, what will he answer?"

If the other sentry is guarding the road leading to the friendly village, the sentry you ask will say, "no," regardless of whether he or the other sentry is the truth teller. If not, the answer will be "yes" in either case.

Right, but back to being picky... you can't ask the other sentry anything, so framing the question that way is, what... awkward? (can't find the word I need) Maybe, "If I could ask the other sentry..." or "If you asked the other sentry..."

Anyway, the key is that you don't know which sentry to ask, so that's irrelevant. Your question has to be posed in such a way that you're able to determine the correct road to take without knowing if the sentry is lying or not, as the above question is so posed.

Now, dk, had you heard this or another similar riddle before?? Fess up! (You too, Artie. Just didn't quite remember the correct answer there, but close!)

Sorry, Gregg, but my answer is correct.

By phrasing the question "If I were to ask you" you trap the lying sentry... If you ask hir the question directly se'll lie, but in answering the indirect question se'll lie about the lie.

The truthful sentry, on the other hand, will answer truthfully in response to both the direct and indirect questions.

> [...] how would you know to trust "se"?

That's "hir."

Edit: Yep... This is not a new one on me, and, as I recall, the answer I heard way back when was somehow different from what I've posted, but I stand by my post, nonetheless.

Ok, I'll buy that. Much more subtle. You're really depending on those sentries to be intellectual heavyweights though. I think the other way would be safer!

I can do picky too. The assumption that the sentries know whether the other sentry is a liar isn't entirely safe.

> You're really depending on those sentries to be intellectual heavyweights though.

Nope! I'm merely depending on them to do their thing, whether it be telling the truth or lying.

Exactly.

(And, by the way, it's another oldie but goodie, having graced many a logic and/or philosophy class.)

Well, the scenario is that it's a remote wilderness. Perhaps the sentries aren't educated enough to know the difference between a direct and an indirect question. The other question, as you point out, assumes each sentry knows the same things that you know about them. Unless it's the first day on the job for one or both of them, I'd say that's a good assumption. But, I'm just being picky right back at ya.

Understanding the question I posed requires no education at all, merely an understanding of the language in which it was posed.

Easy for you to say. You're well educated. Those that aren't don't understand the language they speak very well. That's why lawyers don't ask them indirect or compound questions. Or, when they do, they're forced to restate and break down the question into smaller bites. Classic case of that when I was on a jury: the lawyer apologized and then led the witness on a three or four question journey to arrive at the same destination as his original question. I know you're going to stand by your assertion. And I'm going to stand on my position that it is incorrect. Have a nice day.