On a game show there are three closed doors – one hides a car and the other two conceal a goat. The contestant selects a door, which remains closed, and the host, knowing where the car is hidden, reveals a goat behind one of the remaining two doors. The contestant is then given the option to switch doors or stay with the one they originally selected. What should the contestant do to have the best chance of winning the car?
The contestant should switch doors, which doubles the chance of winning the car. Initially there is a 2/3 chance of picking a goat, but once the other goat is revealed, switching to remaining door gives the contestant a better chance of winning the car. This is known as the Monty Hall Problem and can be very unintuitive.
A snail creeps 10 feet up a wall during the daytime, then falls asleep. It wakes up the next morning and discovers it slipped down 6 feet. If this happens each day, how many days will it take to reach the top of a 20 foot wall?
What looks like food, tastes like food, smells like food, sounds like food when you cook it, is grown in dirt like food, fills up your stomach like food, but is not food?
A poisonous mushroom. Since some types of mushrooms are edible, it can be very hard to distinguish between a safe mushroom and one that will kill you. Food is defined as a substance consumed to provide nutrition, therefore a poisonous mushroom that kills you doesn’t qualify as food, even though it shares all of the traits of a regular mushroom.
Other valid answers include anything that’s edible, resembles food, but is poisonous.
Rhonda will go see ballet but not the opera. Her favorite number is eight and she doesn’t like nine. She likes salmon but not trout. She hates Mondays and likes Wednesdays. Does she use a comb or a brush?