psychology
If you can answer these 3 questions correctly, you are considered intelligent
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When is a person intelligent? A Yale professor wants to get to the bottom of this topic – with a simple test consisting of three questions.
There are various very complex methods of determining a person’s intelligence – such as tests that calculate the IQ, i.e. the intelligence quotient. The whole thing should be much easier with a very short quiz developed by Yale professor Shane Frederick. Only three questions should according to the “Cognitive Reflection Test” define how smart a person is. Can you answer the questions correctly right away?
Intelligence test with 3 questions: The “Cognitive Reflection Test”
- A bat and ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much is the ball?
- When five machines need five minutes for five products. How long does it then take 100 machines to create 100 products?
- Water lilies grow in a lake. The amount of water lilies doubles every day. The water lilies take 48 days to cover the entire lake. How long would it take for the water lilies to cover half of the lake?
It seems that the answers to these questions are obvious. Many people quickly think of these solutions: ten cents, 100 minutes and 24 days. In fact, the answers are wrong, the correct solutions are: five cents, five minutes and 47 days.
How do you get the correct answers?
- If the bat cost one dollar and the ball cost ten cents, the difference in price between them would only be 90 cents – but it’s supposed to be one dollar. Therefore, the bat can only cost $1.05 and the ball five cents to meet this requirement.
- If five machines take five minutes for five products, one machine takes five minutes for one product. Accordingly, 100 machines for 100 products also need five minutes.
- If the amount of water lilies doubles every day and the entire lake is covered on day 48, the lake must be half covered one day before that 48th day. Because on day 48 the amount doubles again – that’s why the correct answer is 47 days.
How meaningful is the intelligence test really?
Professor Shane Frederick originally developed these questions as a psychological test. Several thousand subjects took part in 35 different studies. Only 17 percent of the participants answered all three questions correctly, and 33 percent gave all the questions the wrong answer. According to Shane Frederick, the group of people who quickly gave the seemingly obvious but ultimately wrong answers acted more on instinct. According to the professor, those who come up with the correct answers act more carefully.
Over time, however, the professor found that people with a higher IQ were more likely to answer the questions correctly than those with a lower one. After all, answering the questions correctly requires that you are cognitively able to understand them correctly and come up with the correct answer through logical thinking. Anyone who is more cautious than the type, but does not have these analytical skills, will not help intensive thinking about the problem.
Which brings us to the next problem with the test: because the mathematical and logical component is only part of intelligence. There are many other types of intelligence, such as linguistic, spatial, emotional, or musical intelligence. So if you can’t shine in analytical tasks like these three questions, you’re not automatically stupid – your intelligence probably just lies somewhere else.
Sources used: businessinsider.de, sjdm.org