SHORT AND SWEET

Take a shot at the world’s shortest IQ test that has just THREE questions – but 80 per cent will fail

THREE questions separate you from being of average intelligence and full-blown brainbox - but are they as easy as they seem?

The Cognitive Reflection Test has been hailed as the world's shortest IQ test because it features just three questions.

Each one is designed to assess your abilities to identify a simple problem that might actually be harder than it first appears.

Not only do boffins claim that getting the right answer is a sign of genius, but also the time frame in which you come up with your solution.

A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size.
If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

Now you've had a crack at the questions, the chances are you answered 10p for question 1, 100 minutes for question 2 and 24 days for question 3.

If you did, you are wrong.

Scroll down to see the correct answers to the test, and the workings behind each one.

If the bat costs £1 more than the bat, you need to think outside the box.

While it might be easy to assume that the ball is 10p, that would make the bat £1.10 as it costs £1 MORE than the ball.

In order to keep the total at £1.10, the ball HAS to be 5p - and the bat worth £1.05.

Five machines can make five widgets in five minutes.

This means that one machine will make a widget in five minutes, too.

Therefore, 100 machines all making widgets can make 100 widgets in 5 minutes.

The patch us doubling in size each day it is going forward, so it would halve going backwards.

This means that on day 47, the day before it covered the whole lake, it would be halfway there.

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