Einstein's Riddle

[Thaddeus L Olczyk]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 16:08:32 GMT, "David Murphy" <dwmurphy at home.com>
wrote:

>This reminds me of a test my class was given WAY back in grade 6.  It was
>two sheets of paper long, and at the very top, it was clearly stated that
>the student should 'Read the entire test carefully before beginning'.
>
>The point was, at the bottom of the second page, the student was told
>something to the effect of: 'After reading through the test, place your
>pencil on you desk and wait for further instructions'.
>
>Well, 90%+ of the class immediately went to work on this test.  There were a
>couple of questions where students had to get up and do things, and it was
>rather amusing to watch them run around.  About 30 minutes later, they
>started to get to the end, and they realized that they had been running
>around and scribbling down answers for nothing.  It was a rather profound
>lesson, at least for me.
>
The version I saw the last question was sign your name and turn it in.
There were ( AFAIK ) no questions about getting up and running around.
We were given an hour told it was very important. I gave up after
reading the test halfway in the first thirty minutes and started
answering questions.

It didn't help that we had a strange test two weeks.
For the first time the HS I was in had set up a special schedual for
midterms/finals. In this particular class we would meet for two
seperate hours. THe teacher gave us an exam that should have lasted
one hour ( by her estimation ). She was going to use the second hour
for a class. It turned out that most fiished about 3/4 of the test in
the two hours. So she had a reputation for giving long tests.

>*IF* Einstein was just talking about people's ability to deal with just the
>facts, and not to make assumptions, I think 2% +/- 5% is probably a good
>estimate.   Take a look at the first draft of the next project specification
>you get *grin*
>
The problem is typical of problems published in many magazines ( here
in Dell Crosswords ). I suspect that 2%-5% will have the motivation to
sit through solving the puzzle unless there were some other reward,
but I figure half the population could actually solve it given the
proper motivation.

I also figure the fish thing was simply a typo, and that this guy (
who hasn't resdponded ) was probably given this as a homework
assignement, and is simply looking for a cheap way to get it done.