"MindTrap" nonsense

[Duoas]

This is supposed to be a smart game, but I keep finding cards like these. They are incorrect. Do you know why?

A big hint in all of them is that the game relies on idiom puns and other misinformation and misdirection, which is characterized as "lateral thinking".

Here is a freebie to explain what I am talking about:

Q

Which is correct to say, 'The yolk of the egg are white'
or, 'The yolk of the egg is white'?

A

Neither. The yolk of an egg is yellow.

Real Answer:

Perhaps, but that isn't what the question asked. Italicizing the words are and is asks an explicit comparison between them -- thereby specifically discounting any other issues with the sentence. The game tricks you by changing the common meaning -- in other words, by twisting written and visual idioms.

In this case, the trick is the same as bringing someone over to a wrecked car, pointing to one of the deflated tires and asking how to fix it. If the answer is that the car needs a new engine and a paint job etc then the question about the tire was not actually answered.


Here's another:

Q

Under what conditions would a rope be most likely to
break?

a. 20 men of equal strength with 10 pulling on each end.

b. 10 of the same men pulling on one end and the other
end being fastened to a tree.

c. It makes no difference

A

The answer is c. If 20 men pull on the rome (10 on each
end), the stress on the rope will be no greater than if 10
pulled from one end and the other was tied to a tree.
The tension on a rome is no greater than the pull at one
of its ends.

Real Answer:

Actually, there is a significant difference. The real answer is b, because any knot weakens a rope. Any time you put bends or folds in something, you weaken it. Structural engineers know this. Here is an origami that bends the way it does by capitalizing on the difference between the weak edges and strong planes in the paper: https://www.math.lsu.edu/~verrill/origami/parabola/


Here's more. Can you spot the errors?

This one plays semantics:

Q

In our calendar some months have 30 days and some
monthes have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?

A

All of them.

This one plays the question not asked:

Q

In Duncan's cottage, where the temperature was below
freezing, there was a newspaper, a fireplace, some
kindling, and a kerosene lamp. What should he light
first?

A

The match.

This one plays idioms:

Q

Dee Septor, the famous magician, recently claimed that
he had been in New York City performing a feat that no
one else had accomplished. He boasted that he had
walked on his hands for a mile and a half down a typical
cement sidewalk before he lost his balance and fell.
What is wrong with Dee Septor's claim?

A

There is no such thing as a cement sidewalk in New
York City or anywhere else. Sidewalks are made of
concrete. Cement is merely one of the several
ingredients that make up concrete. Concrete is made of
sand, gravel, water, and finally cement, which is the
active agent that binds all of the materials.

Here is a favorite of mine. Even though the answer is correct the explanation is totally bogus:

Q

As you approach the centre of a turning wheel, the
speed decreases. Owing to this fact, does the exact
centre of a wheel rotate when the wheel turns? Explain.

A

The answer is yes. Theoretically, the answer would
appear to be no, since to move at all, it would seem the
exact center is moving in two directions at once, which
is of course impossible. The exact centre of a wheel
does turn since the particle in the centre of the wheel,
be it ever so small, could always be divided in half and
this process could continue indefinitely.

Here is another favorite. This one's logic is twisted by some bad business sense right at the start, and gets worse from there:

Q

The owner of the 'Soul-Ace Hotel' asked Hardy Pyle to
go to the local butcher shop to buy some steaks. The
butcher told Hardy that he had 18 steaks for sale which
varied in quality. Half the steaks were worth $4 and
the other half worth $6. If the butcher selected the steaks
they would by $4 each and if Hardy selected them
they would be $6 each. Bearing in mind that the butcher
will obviously choose the lower quality steaks, what
should Hardy do in order to get the best all-around deal?

A

Hardy should buy them all. Since he is buying the
steaks for a hotel, to purchase 18 steaks is not
unreasonable. Bu purchasing them all, he will get both
the $4 and the $6 steaks at the low price of $4 each.

I'm sure they were using Weedster's Dictionary on this one:

Q

In the following series, which can be evenly divided by two?

    1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9

A

All of them. In the case of 7, it can be evenly divided into
two parts, each being 3 1/2.

Well, that's it for my 'ppl r stoopid' rant. I bet the guys who wrote this nonsense sit around in their MENSA meetings thinking they are smart.

[xerzi]

Q
In Duncan's cottage, where the temperature was below
freezing, there was a newspaper, a fireplace, some
kindling, and a kerosene lamp. What should he light
first?
A
The match.

I normally start mine with two sticks :P.

[Duoas]

LOL. The key word in that one is 'what'. The supplied answer could not have been given had the word been 'which'.

The problem with the answer is that the text is not unrelated. Presenting the two sentences together implies relation, meaning that the word 'what', even though it is not an explicit reference, is still an anaphor referring to the list of items given.

Hence, giving an answer outside of the list dodges the question. Duncan will obviously need some other ignition device, like a match or lighter (or two sticks) to light his kindling or lamp or whatever, and he will obviously have to light that before he gets to torch his reading material.

If I were Duncan, I'd start with the kindling in the fireplace. That would warm me up enough to bundle up and live off the heat from the kerosene lantern once the fire is exhausted. I wouldn't bother with the newspaper -- he wouldn't get any appreciable warmth from it.

[maeriden]

If you ask me, answering correctly means that you lack common sense, not that you are smart

[helios]

Real Answer:

Perhaps, but that isn't what the question asked. Italicizing the words are and is asks an explicit comparison between them -- thereby specifically discounting any other issues with the sentence. The game tricks you by changing the common meaning -- in other words, by twisting written and visual idioms.

Furthermore, the distinction between "correct" and "true" is being muddled.

I do love the one about the spinning wheel. It's like whoever made that question wrote themselves into a corner and tried to weasel their way out by making some vague reference to a recursive process. Basically, P & magic! => Q.
Before answering yes or no, though, with a game this cheating I would ask for "rotation" to be defined mathematically. Different definitions can lead you to different answers.

I just realized there's possibly some trickery here:

As you approach the centre of a turning wheel, the
speed decreases. Owing to this fact, does the exact
centre of a wheel rotate when the wheel turns?

The first part of the question has nothing to do with rotation, but with the absolute movement of an object on the wheel. Whether some part of the wheel rotates or not is totally unrelated to whether the tangential speed of an object increases with the distance to the center of rotation.
Using perfectly formal logic, the correct answer would be "no" because the center rotates independently of the relative movements of objects at different distances from it. In reality, both are consequences of a common cause (the rotation of the wheel as a whole).

[Duoas]

Exactly! :O)