Ralph goes to the hardware store to buy something for his house. He asks the clerk how much one will cost and the clerk looks it up and tells him it will be $3. He asks about buying twelve and is told it will be $6. Two hundred will cost $9.
Four cards are placed in front of you on the table, each with a number on one side and a color on the other. The visible cards show 3, 8, red and brown. Which cards should you turn over in order to test the truth of the statement that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?
You’d need to turn over only the 8 and brown card. Only a card with an even number on one face and which is not red on the other face can invalidate the stated rule. If you turn over the 3 card and it’s not red, it doesn’t invalidate the rule, nor does turning over the red card and finding it has the label 3.
This test was devised by Peter Cathcart Wason and is known as the Wason selection task. Less than 10% of test subjects got it correct in two separate studies.
The moon. The moon has a long association with being crazy (lunar being the basis for a lunatic). It shines at night, when you go to bed. The moon’s gravity creates the ocean tides and when the moon is different colors it can mean bad weather is on its way.
The moon. It has two sides, but on earth we only ever see one side. Man has been on the moon, but no one is there now. A full lunar eclipse is known as a blood moon, and the phrase “once in a blue moon” refers to something that rarely happens. Promising the moon is making an extravagant or impossible promise, and there’s a new moon once every lunar cycle.
Ronald has a rare opportunity to meet the President of the United States. During his visit the president gives him a gift but tells Ronald he is never to sell it unless he sees the president again. Ronald consents, but the president dies later that year. Years later a man offers to buy the President’s gift for $1000. Ronald agrees and exchanges the gift for 20 crisp $50 bills. Did he keep his promise?
Yes. The president was Ulysses S. Grant, who died in 1885 and whose face has been on the $50 bill since 1913. He saw the president on the bills before he made the exchange.
A seven letter word that has T as the second letter, A as the fourth letter and S as the sixth letter. Girls love it, boys use it, parents hate it and it scares animals. Hint: It’s a German word.
A persistent puzzle solver will discover that no English word satisfies the letter requirements, to say nothing of the loving, using, hating or being scared requirements. I found three German words that work:
1) strafst 2) strapse 3) strauss
1 and 3 mean punish and bouquet respectively. I couldn’t find a definition for strapse. Punish is the likely answer. Girls love to punish boys, boys use punishment as well, a good parent hates to use punishment and animals are scared of it. I don’t know of any animals that are scared of a bouquet, though a bouquet fits as something girls love and boys use.
