Can you ace the world's shortest IQ test that has only 3 questions?

IQ tests, a set of questions that rate a person's intelligence, are quite popular. But do you know about the world's shortest IQ test? It has only three questions that have managed to stump the most intelligent people, or at least those who believe they are among the top crop.

Called the Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making Test, it was published in 2005 by Professor Shane Frederick. It might look simple and straightforward, but data suggests that it is easily the toughest IQ test out there, UNILAD reported.

Records show that when Frederick tested 3,000 participants, only 17 per cent were able to answer all three correctly. This means that the test that looked simple had a staggering failure rate of 83 per cent.

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The 3 IQ test questions that most people fail

Question 1: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

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Question 2: If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

Question 3: In a lake, a patch of lily pads doubles in size every day. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take to cover half the lake?

The correct answers are - five cents, five minutes, and 47 days.

The answers most people get are - ten cents, 100 minutes, and 24 days.

Frederick explains the simple rationale behind the answers. About the first question, he notes, "Anyone who reflects upon it for even a moment would recognise that the difference between $1 and 10 cents is only 90 cents, not $1 as the problem stipulates. In this case, catching that error is tantamount to solving the problem, since nearly everyone who does not respond '10 cents' does, in fact, give the correct response."

Answer to the second IQ question

Answering the second question, Frederick states, "If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, then it takes 1 machine 5 minutes to make 1 widget (each machine is making a widget in 5 minutes). If we have 100 machines working together, then each can make a widget in 5 minutes. So there will be 100 widgets in 5 minutes."

Answer to the third IQ question

The third question has been explained by Presh Talwalkar from Mind Your Decisions, a YouTube channel. "Every day FORWARD the patch doubles in size. So every day BACKWARDS means the patch halves in size. So on day 47, the lake is half full."

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The test questions lead people to instinctively choose what looks clearly like the right answer. However, there is more that meets the eye in this case, as a whopping 83 per cent people, as per Frederick's data, failed the test.

Were you among the top 17 per cent?