

50% of students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton can't answer this question - yapcguy
http://www.businessinsider.com/question-that-harvard-students-get-wrong-2012-12

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ender89
I got it right, suck it half of MIT

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jyzzmoe
"suck it half of MIT"

It is not clear if 50% means:

(1) "50% of the total"

(2) "in each school, 50% of those asked could not answer the question".

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jyzzmoe
A = bat price B = ball price

(1) A + B = 1.1 (2) A - B = 1

(1) + (2) : 2A = 2.1 => A = 1.05 => B = 0.05.

I don't understand the fuss.

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niuzeta
I guess the fuss(and the point this little experiment was trying to prove) is
that people, when faced with seemingly simple problem like this, do not start
thinking like you've just portrayed and go with the gut feeling, because the
question is so seemingly simple.

To be honest the number 10 also came up immediately for me as well, then I
stopped to think 'wait, there has to be more' because of the title.

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jyzzmoe
And 0.10 popped into my head as well. However, the fact that this was even
asked as a question would cause someone to stop and think a bit more
analytically I would think.

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niuzeta
that is a good point. Funnily enough, this is the kind of trick question which
I would _fall_ for the first time encountering, had it been asked as a quiz
without any label, but the whole _50% of great students have failed_ labelling
made me think, _not_ doubting my answer, but doubting the _difficulty_ of the
question that I had expected.

I will need to get my introspection goggles before thinking this further.

