Thursday, January 3, 2008

Money Talk 2 — Analysis

A couple of weeks ago, I post Money Talk 2. Unfortunately, very few people answered the question, so much so that I have totally forgotten all about it—until shortly ago when one of the only 3 persons who submitted an answer reminded me about the post.

Well, in this particular test, I haven't been able to prove my point for two reasons. Firstly, as I said, only 3 persons submitted an answer—one male and two females. Secondly, all the answers were the same; they were all correct.

The point of the question was to prove the human inclination to think mechanically. Since the problem was about a simple substraction, if the solver was not careful, he would have simply calculated RM3.00 - RM1.65 = RM1.35. But in the practical sense, this would be a wrong answer!

The correct answer would be RM0.35. The reason was because the person purchasing the biscuits would pay with RM2.00 only (although he had RM3.00 in his pocket). Therefore the change he'd expect from the shop keeper was RM0.35. In terms of trick, I guess the one about the trucks was better, huh?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duhhh !! And we thought you had somehow a "RM3 note" hidden up your sleeve.

Cornelius said...

No, 2R1I, so far we have no RM3 note yet. Neither have I heard of any plans to print such denomination any time soon. There are of course the RM2 notes, but those are also quite rarely seen these days.

Straightforward question like this one would probably confuse complicated minds like you people!... hehehe. At least I hope you people had this question to talk about at the island? So how was Sipadan? Was it worth all the trouble to go all the way there?