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Saw this puzzle in a book I am cataloging today and am very confused.
Which toothpick would you need to move to create two, and only two, squares?
This is multiple-choice; the answers are 8, 5, 9, or 7.
It's taken me a while of looking at it to conclude that the answer I think they want is 9 (move it to connect 7 and 1, and you have a small square in the upper left corner of a bigger one). But without looking at the answers at first, I thought 4 or 3 or 2 could work, moved to the same space (yielding two small squares stacked on top of each other, and an open figure on the right), which you can also do with 5; and similarly, 8 or 7 can be moved to bisect the right rectangle and leave the open figure on the left.
Am I just dumb (this is in an IQ test after all; I am not brilliant with this sort of spatial stuff) or is the question really misleadingly phrased? To me "two and only two squares" means "two squares, no more and no fewer" but doesn't specify anything about the other toothpicks. It seems like they may have meant "two squares and nothing else, no open ends left".
Which toothpick would you need to move to create two, and only two, squares?
This is multiple-choice; the answers are 8, 5, 9, or 7.
It's taken me a while of looking at it to conclude that the answer I think they want is 9 (move it to connect 7 and 1, and you have a small square in the upper left corner of a bigger one). But without looking at the answers at first, I thought 4 or 3 or 2 could work, moved to the same space (yielding two small squares stacked on top of each other, and an open figure on the right), which you can also do with 5; and similarly, 8 or 7 can be moved to bisect the right rectangle and leave the open figure on the left.
Am I just dumb (this is in an IQ test after all; I am not brilliant with this sort of spatial stuff) or is the question really misleadingly phrased? To me "two and only two squares" means "two squares, no more and no fewer" but doesn't specify anything about the other toothpicks. It seems like they may have meant "two squares and nothing else, no open ends left".
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Date: Jul. 22nd, 2009 09:20 pm (UTC)From:And then there's the occasional ones where all the answers are wrong, such as one in the language section which asked, "______ are words which sound the same, but are spelled differently." The answer they wanted from the ones provided was "homonyms" (the others were synonyms, antonyms, and something else obviously [well, to me obviously] incorrect), but that's wrong, or at least imprecise; it should be "homophones" if you mean it strictly (apparently "nym" can be used for the form of the sound as well as the form of the letters, adding confusion). So I'd have to go, well, do I pick this answer because I'm guessing it's what they want, or leave it blank...?
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Date: Jul. 22nd, 2009 09:33 pm (UTC)From: