The quiz below was sent to me by a friend via e-mail today. I am not sure who authored it, but I decided to post it because I think it tests the kind of mental sharpness that the SAT and other standardized tests reward. The answers are posted in the first comment below. (I’ll admit that I missed one of them myself.)
1. Do they have a 4th of July in England?
2. How many birthdays does the average person have?
3. Some months have 31 days, how many have 28?
4. How many outs are there in an inning of baseball?
5. Is it legal for a man in California to marry his widow’s sister?
6. Divide 30 by ½ and add 10. What is the answer?
7. If there are three apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?
8. How many animals of each sex did Moses take on the ark?
9. How many two cent stamps are there in a dozen?
10. A farmer has 17 sheep, and all but 9 die. How many are left?
October 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am
1. Yes. (What the Brits do not celebrate is Independence Day.)
2. One. (Everyone has one birthday.)
3. All months have 28 days.
4. Six. (Three in the top of the inning and three in the bottom of the inning.)
5. No, a dead man cannot legally marry in California. (Still confused? Think about the definition of the word “widow”.)
6. Seventy. (30 divided by one half is sixty, and sixty plus ten is seventy.)
7. Two.
8. None. It was Noah’s ark, not Moses’ ark. (This is the one I missed.)
9. Twelve. (A dozen is twelve. Only a baker’s dozen in different — 13.)
10. Nine.
If you missed one or more, don’t feel bad. Many of the questions involve the kind of cultural bias that would prevent them from ever making it into a standardized test.
October 18th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I missed 3, Mr. Schellscheidt. I guess I need more tutoring
October 18th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Hmm… Shouldn’t that properly be “birth day?”
Just curious.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
I shared your suspicion, Urvi, so I just looked up “birthday” on dictionary.com.
“Birthday” is defined as:
the day of a person’s birth; or
the anniversary of a person’s birth.
Ultimately, I guess it all depends on context. If an acquaintance made an inquiry regarding my birthday, I would give the month and date (i.e., the anniversary of my birth). If, however, a bouncer at a club so inquired, I would offer the month, day and year (i.e., the actual date of my birth). I agree that the context of the quiz was misleading.
In any case, I hope the quiz offered a fun little diversion. I personally like little brain teasers like that. My current problem, however, is that my wife answered every one correctly. I now want a new quiz and a rematch.
October 27th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
I got them all except the Moses one. I feel a little guilty because I go to a Catholic school- it’s not like I’m not familiar with either story. Whoops!!!!