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Quizzes for IQ of any kind

AhQ ['a: kiu]
User since 2006
Posts: 2715

23 Dec. 2006

Troops on leave


Three G.I. recruits come out of the barracks and enter a bar across the street.
On a slate on the wall the whiskey gets fixed 9 dollars.
Leaning on the bar each of them asks for a whiskey.


Each of them puts a 10 dollars note down the counter. That makes 30 $.
The tenant is eager to be kindly to that young volunteers about to leave for Irak; he gives back 5 notes of 1 buck.


Each boy takes back a buck. And they give the 2 left bucks to the waiter.


Now let’s work it out.
Each recruit paid 10 $ minus 1, it is 9 $.
Together they paid 9 $ x 3 = 27 $
Plus the 2 $ given to the waiter, that makes 27 $ + 2 $ equals 29 $.


Where has the last damned 30th buck gone?


Please help me solving the issue.

16 comments

  • User since 2006
    Posts: 41

    26 Dec. 2006

    What do you mean a note... a bill?
    Anyway!
    What is three times ten? Thirty!
    Yes, I know you know. I don’t want to be smart with you :-)
    So, it turns out that the price is eventually only twenty five bucks since five dollars are reimbursed.
    The guys let a two dollars tip and keep three bills as their change back.
    As a result :
    the price is twenty five.
    the tip is two
    the change is three : one for each of them.
    They pay three times nine, twenty seven.
    The price (25) plus the tip (2) is what they pay (27).
    What they pay (27) plus the change (3) is their three tens of the beginning.


    “Now it’s time! We gotta go! Waiter! Give me five!” one of them says.
    “Waiter! Give me five!” the second says.
    “Waiter! Give me five!” the third says.


    And they give each other five.


    “It doesn’t come with a price, it’s for free, but it’s nice of you” the waiter says.
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    28 Dec. 2006

    Well reckoned, Jean-Pierre.
    What a mess with all the 'Waiter! Give me five!'
    The guys were drunken giving each other five.
    How did they proceed? A to B ; B to C ; C to D ? or at random?
    Was the waiter dizzy?
    Or may be your telling is closed to me because I don’t comprehend this sentence: 'It doesn’t come with a price, it’s for free.' (çà ne change rien au prix, c’est gratuit ???)
    Thank you in advance for shedding some light.. [I’m a débutante.]
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 41

    29 Dec. 2006



    It's for free = c'est gratuit
    The opposite is :
    It comes with a price tag or It comes with a price
    = depending on the context :
    either « it costs » or « it’s expensive »

    It comes with a price tag of $799
    = it costs $799 and the price is supposed to be high
    = ça coûte la "bagatelle" de £799

    American guys say « Give me five! » when they hit each other’s open hand in order to show how pleased they are. Don’t be confused, it’s not a handshake!
    Anyway it’s not five dollars, it's not money.

    Cathy, you don't seem to be a beginner at all.
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    30 Dec. 2006

    Thank you, Jean-Pierre, for answering my question.
    Now I can catch your joking talk.
    I'll never forget that "Give me five"!
    Congratulations.


    Cathy
    who has never been to America,
    who has never been going out with a G.I.,
    who is a novice in English
    and still more novice in American.
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    3 Jan. 2007

    To Jean-Pierre.


    So hard to try it on with you.
    So nice to read your so fluent and easy speaking.
    I’m amazed to see how you could make the story lively.
    I’d just confess that it’s once in a while going beyond me. I am a bit a drudge with English. Until now I’ve never been immerged for a long time in an English environment, so I didn’t know much about what a high-five was.


    (Now I’m going to speak to beginners possibly reading me.)


    In French we say “tope-là !” by slapping hands each other for sealing a deal or making a bet. It’s called a “high-five”. So Jean-Pierre made the GI give ‘high-fives’ at saying “give me five!”. It’s a habit of his probably.


    To Jean-Pierre again.


    About the bill, I thank you for making me aware that there are dollars bills all over the world and that the Pounds are dressed in banknotes. That proves that my writing is hardworking.


    About the quiz itself, it was an obvious sophism, i.e. a reasoning (here a question) using a false clue with the intention of deceiving. In the story the sophism consisted in counting the dollars as if 27 + 2 had come out of the GI's pocket, as the 2 came from the tenant.


    Thank you, Jean-Pierre and Cathy, for your follow-up.
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    3 Jan. 2007

    Troops on guard


    One month later the three GIs are in Baghdad.
    There is a cell in the compound where they are mounting guard.
    In the cell there is a Iraqi man.
    Each of our 3 guards has got a key of the door in his pocket.
    At every 5 past the hour they come in turn outside the door of the cell, lift up the blind of the spy hole in the door and have a peep inside the cell.


    At 3:05 AM today the first GI comes round, peeps through the spy hole and notice that the Iraqi is sitting on the chair in the cell reciting the Koran.
    At 4:05 the second GI comes round, peeps through the spy hole and notice that the Iraqi is pacing up and down inside the cell.
    At 5:05 the third GI comes round, peeps through the spy hole and notice that there is nobody in the cell.


    How did the Iraqi manage to get out of the cell?
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    5 Jan. 2007

    Answer to Gee's quizz "troops on guard"


    The man got out when the guards were away. Each of the GIs thought his mate had locked the door. But the door hadn't been locked.
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    5 Jan. 2007

    From Amy:
    Answer to Gee's quizz "troops on guard"


    The man got out when the guards were away. Each of the GIs thought his mate had locked the door. But the door hadn't been locked.

     
    Props to you, Amy. Congratulations both for having resolved the quiz and for having done it at such short notice.


    This quiz didn't require a high IQ. It had to do with a philosophical state of mind.
    Amy doesn’t play the gullible listener. I guess that she is used getting rid of all a priori we are living with. She suspends all interpretations that come at first to take into account any other possibilities of thinking about the facts which are given.
    At once she dismissed the idea that the door was locked. And she invented a reason why it could be so.
    Here in this case, it’s not said that the man in the cell is a prisoner, he could have been put in as a collaborator to be protected from the Moqtada militias but needed to be kept watched though. You never know what is on their minds with Iraqis.
    He could be in the cell for painting the walls. And so on…


    I’m sure that a lot of other GG users had an answer but didn’t think it was worth answering because the quiz was too easy. That’s why I’m going right away to display a more complicated one which resquires a high IQ.
  • User since 2006
    Posts: 2715

    5 Jan. 2007

    Chen Lee and the three GIs (1)


    Do you remember Chen Lee, that Chinese detective that came up in the Lounge to tail a mailman invited by Jean-Pierre ? He had been hired by a deceived husband to tail his wife. When the husband read Chen’s report he got so furious that he hired the detective right away.


    Being between jobs (2) Chen Lee had read in an American magazine that blood and money are getting along in Baghdad, that Iraq’s economy is growing strong, even booming in places, and that Chinese trade is the most pervasive in that boom. Cheap Chinese goods overflow from shop shelves.(3) Chen Lee who had a quick wit was not the man to miss an opportunity of a lifetime. He soon hired himself out in Iraq as a salesman by Sinopec, a Chinese company supported by the Beijing government.
    He had been in Baghdad for no more than 3 days when he got robbed by Sunny racketeers.
    Chen Lee was hungry and thirsty. He took shelter in the Green Zone looking for a Cha Dian(4). Languishing for a green tea and a Cantonese rice, he just noticed that “NO CHA DIAN IN GREEN ZONE!” . He had to make do with an American bar.


    He entered such a bar and begged for some food and drink: “I STARVE I DRY”(5) he said.
    The tenant didn’t turn down the request.
    He said :


    “Look at the three GIs sipping their whisky while playing cards at that small round table there over.
    One of them is Truman, he always tell the truth.
    Another one is Liefan, he always lies.
    The third one is Fickleguy, he never takes into account what he is said and whatever asked, always replies by talking nonsense.
    You may put down only 3 questions calling for a Yes or No answer by pointing out at each time who has to answer.
    If afterwards you can keep them straight (6), I’ll offer you a hamburger and a coke.”


    Chen Lee was a clever man. He won hamburger and coke.


    The question is : What were the 3 questions Chen Lee put down and to whom ?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    (1)the three GIs were those we met yesterday and the day before.
    (2)to be between jobs > unemployed
    (3) that’s no fiction but whatever we might think it’s the factual reality.
    (4) Cha Dian, a tearoom (in Pinjin).
    (5) When I read the report written by detective Chen Lee, I thought he was all but a beginner at learning English. Not at all! Chinese language is simple, plain: no declension, no conjugation, no article. And Chen Lee wanted to talk English in the Chinese manner to accustom us to the language of the upcoming invaders.
    (6) to keep them straight > to identify any of them i.e. say who is truman, who is Liefan, who is Fickleguy.
    Warning! This quiz is not a sophism at all. It's a pure logical problem.
    It’s a bit difficult.
    A hint: Asking any GI about himself is no use since you don’t know whom you are asking. The question must run about something else. Be logician.

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