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        riddles >> hard >> Help needed: puzzles/riddles from another site
        
(Message started by: Kozo Morimoto on Dec 6^th, 2002, 4:23am)

Title: Help needed: puzzles/riddles from another site
Post by Kozo Morimoto on Dec 6^th, 2002, 4:23am

I've recently found this site:
http://www.highiqsociety.org/flash/nonmembers/iqtests.htm

I tried the logic test and out of 15, I'm pretty sure on the answers to 13 questions. 1 question I (educated) guessed, and didn't know the proof, I've asked for help as 9 jars and 9 labels.

The site has "Test for Exceptional Intelligence" and I've looked through most of them, and I could not make any progress on any of them - most of them involve some pattern sequence thing which I'm totally hopeless at.

I didn't want to post the questions in fear of copyright or plagerism, but if anyone can help me out on any of the questions, I'd be very grateful.

Maybe this forum needs a 'links' section for other riddle sites or help requests?

Title: Re: Help needed: puzzles/riddles from another site
Post by Garzahd on Dec 6^th, 2002, 11:11am

Look for a thread called "Think You're Good?" - this site was mentioned before, and a few of us banged our heads against the exceptional IQ test and concluded that several of the questions are too vague to be solved.

As for the question you mention, it's a simple linearity-of-expectation problem. Considering just one jar for a little while: It would have a 1/9 probability of being correct, so it's said that there is an "expectation" of 1/9 of a correct jar. Since there are 9 jars, each contributing an expectation of 1/9, there is an overall expectation of 1 jar being correct.

If this seems like a strange way to do math, you can take a look at some lecture notes on the subject at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/avrim/www/Randalgs98/lect0917

Title: Re: Help needed: puzzles/riddles from another site
Post by Pietro K.C. on Dec 6^th, 2002, 12:33pm

Yeah, I went there too... never got past the 5th or so question, started to get annoyed. I think that, when ask someone to recognize a pattern that is too complex, there will be lots of different possible answers. :P As the mensa thread clearly illlustrates.

Title: Re: Help needed: puzzles/riddles from another site
Post by Garzahd on Dec 6^th, 2002, 3:19pm

Actually, the patterns being complex is suprisingly not the biggest issue. (though it is important)

IMHO the biggest problem is with questions like #6, which initially looks like a simple (but tedious) linear-algebra problem, however it's made impossible by there being no letter Y in the given clues. And it's never specified that all letters represent different numbers (though it's true in all consistent solutions).

#25 also has some huge underspecification problems (see other thread).

Other problems have nitpickier issues, such as the scaling of squares in the squares-within-squares problem. (i.e. triple all lengths and the answer is still valid)