Donald Trump has challenged his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to “compare IQ tests” following reports that Tillerson called the United States President a “moron”.
The story became public knowledge last week, and Donald Trump was asked for his response to the allegations in a Forbes interview, in which he replied:
I think it’s fake news. But if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.
Trump also addressed the story on Twitter:
Rex Tillerson never threatened to resign. This is Fake News put out by @NBCNews. Low news and reporting standards. No verification from me.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2017
Here are the three questions:
1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take
100 machines to make 100 widgets?
3. 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?
Here is what a lot of people guess:
1. 10 pence
2. 100 minutes
3. 24 days
These answers would be wrong.
When you’re ready, scroll down for the correct answers, and how you get to them:
The Solutions.
For question #1, one might intuitively say, “$1.00 plus $0.10 is $1.10, therefore a ball costs $0.10“. While this is quite intuitive, it is also incorrect. A person who is more thorough might respond that the ball actually costs $0.05 (.05+(1+.05)=1.1). The correct answer is the ball costs $0.05.
For question #2, an intuitive response would be that “5=5=5 so 100=100=100“. However, if it takes a single machine 5 minutes to make a single widget, even a million machines can make a million widgets in 5 minutes. The correct answer is therefore 5 minutes.
For question #3, the common intuitive response would be, “half the pond would be covered in half the time, so 48/2=24 days“. However, this ignores the exponential growth of the lily pads. Try working it backwards, if the pond is covered after 48 days, and they double in size every day, then day 47 would be half covered. The correct answer is 47 days.
In a survey of 3,428 people, an astonishing 33 percent missed all three questions. Most people–83 percent–missed at least one of the questions.
Even very educated people made mistakes. Only 48 percent of MIT students sampled were able to answer all the questions correctly.
Give it a try before reading the answers.
How did you do?
