Let’s be honest here, we’ve all done an IQ test at some point in time. Who doesn’t want to know how smart they are and how you compare to your friends when it comes to intelligence?
But before you start boasting about your top notch brain, try this IQ test out first.
Called the Cognitive Reflection Test, it’s only three questions and you’re almost certainly guaranteed to fail it. Here are the questions:
- A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
- If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
- In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
I’m betting your answers to the three questions were 10 cents, 100 minutes and 24 days respectively, right?
Well I hate to knock your top notch brain down a few pegs but those answers are completely wrong. Here are the correct answers to this seemingly-easy IQ test along with the solutions:
- 5 cents – Say the ball costs X. Then the bat costs $1 more, so it is X + 1. So we have bat + ball = X + (X + 1) = 1.1 because together they cost $1.10. This means 2X + 1 = 1.1, then 2X = 0.1, so X = 0.05. This means the ball costs five cents and the bat costs $1.05.
- 100 minutes – If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, then it takes one machine five minutes to make one widget (each machine is making a widget in five minutes). If we have 100 machines working together, then each can make a widget in five minutes. So there will be 100 widgets in five minutes.
- 24 days – Every day FORWARD the patch doubles in size. So every day BACKWARDS means the patch halves in size. So on day 47 the lake is half full.
No need to feel bad though, over 80% of people who take this test fail it and that includes super smart folks who study at the best universities.
So what’s the deal with this simple-but-not-really IQ test?
Well it’s the brainchild of MIT professor Shane Frederick, who aimed to demonstrate the difference between people who act fast without really thinking and people who take time to figure out things before making a move.
Frederick had 3,428 people (many of whom were MIT students and thus had brains to spare) take the test and only 17 percent got all three questions right, over half got at least one wrong, and one third got them all wrong.
So don’t feel bad if you failed this IQ test. It’s less of a gauge on how smart you are and more of an indicator of how your brain works more than anything.
Besides, if you were truly smart then you wouldn’t put too much stock into the results of a measly IQ test anyway and I’m not just saying this because I got all questions wrong or anything.