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Reflection puzzles test
Seven word problems, a different set every sitting, each with a quick answer that is wrong. See which you checked, which lured you, and the working.
In short
Each of these seven word problems is built so that a quick answer springs to mind and is wrong. The test is whether you stop to check it. A new set appears each time, with the answer and explanation for every puzzle.
How the test works
The seven puzzles are of seven different kinds, out of a larger set: fence posts, pages read, cuts in a plank, flights of stairs, a rise followed by a fall, stacked discounts, round-trip speeds and averages of groups of different sizes. For each, the right answer and the tempting one come from the same numbers, and no puzzle is used where the two are too close to tell apart. You type a number; the result says whether it was right, the lure, or something else, and shows the working.
Where the idea comes from
The idea of a puzzle whose wrong answers cluster on one intuitive response comes from Shane Frederick's 2005 paper on cognitive reflection. This test gives you a new set of seven puzzles each time.
Sources
- Frederick (2005), Cognitive reflection and decision making, Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Stieger and Reips (2016), A limitation of the Cognitive Reflection Test: familiarity, PeerJ
Text, questions and code on this page are original to MyTestAtlas. The cited studies describe the classic procedure; none of their items is reproduced.