The ultimate IQ challenge by marcel feenstra, philip j carter and christopher p harding

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A WARD LOCK BOOK First Published in the UK 1994 by Ward Lock Villiers House 41/47 Strand LONDON WC2N 5JE A Cassell Imprint _ Copyright © Marcel Feenstra, Philip J Carter and Christopher P Harding 1994

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P SHE Applications for the copyright owner's written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be

addressed to the publisher Distributed in the United States by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc

387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810 Distributed in Australia

by Capricom Link (Australia) PtyLtd 2/13 Carrington Road, Castle Hill, NSW 2154

A British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data block for this book may be obtained from the British Library

ISBN 0 7063 7232 8

Design and typesetting by Ben Cracknell Illustrations by Ruth Rudd

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About the Authors

Marcel Feenstra was born in Rotterdam in 1961 A Senior Research Fellow of I.S.P.E (International Society for Philosophical Enquiry) and a member of Prometheus and the Mega Society, he first studied literature and linguistics at the University of Utrecht, then computer science, before starting his own computer consultancy, HiQ Systems, in

1987 He is currently a dual degree student at

the Fletcher School, in Medford, Massachusetts

and the Amos Tuck School in Hanover, New Hampshire

Philip Carter was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in 1944, and he is an engineering estimator and lay magistrate He is the author of several books, including the Take the IQ Challenge series, and is editor of the newsletter of the British Mensa Special

Interest Group Enigmasig He is a member of the Mensa and Intertel High-IQ societies Chris Harding was born in the UK in 1944 but now lives in Australia He is a member of several High-IQ societies, including Mensa, Intertel, Mega and Omega He was the founder of I.S.P.E and is a member of the

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International Test Commission, which polices

IQ test standards throughout the world He has been listed in the Guinness Book of Records under ‘Highest IQ’ Among his awards are life membership of Intertel and Biography of the Year award from Historical Preservations of America

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to every one of the High-IQ society members who submitted material for use in this book We have been delighted with

the response, which made our final choice

very difficult Thanks also to all the High-IQ societies that ran our notice appealing for —

material in their journals Finally, our thanks to all our respective family members for their assistance with the project and words of

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Introduction

It is with great pleasure that we present our second volume of original puzzles and tests from around the world compiled by members of High-IQ societies We hope that as a result of this book many of the puzzles, which may have otherwise been lost to time or not even compiled, will become classics in their own right Collectively they demonstrate a high level of creativity, which we are sure you will find entertaining, challenging, often amusing and always thought-provoking We believe that once you put your mind to work and think laterally, on the look-out for the unexpected, you will start to come up with many of the correct solutions

High-IQ societies are international organiza- tions that do not have the usual restrictions of boundaries and culture Members are

recruited on one criterion only: that of

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confer-ences or correspondence No one member, or ©

group of members, has the right to express opinions on behalf of the society Because

they are recruited on just the one criterion, all

members are of equal standing

The largest and best known High-IQ society is Mensa, which accepts for membership

anyone who has achieved a score within the top 2 per cent of the population on a super- vised IQ test Mensa is the Latin word for ‘table’, thus suggesting a round-table society Other High-IQ societies — the American-based Intertel, for example — have a qualifying level

within the top 1 per cent of the population,

while some are even more selective The Mega society, for example, has its threshold at the 99.9999th percentile and accepts only one person in 1,000,000

The puzzles that follow are, as might be expected, of greatly varying degrees of diffi- culty To enable you to monitor your perfor- mance throughout, we have allocated the following star rating system

¥ Standard

yrvt More challenging verre Difficult

wer Very difficult yevevrr Fiendishly difficult

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Each puzzle has been cross-referenced with two numbers: a question number (Q) and an answer number (A) This has enabled us to mix up the answers section so that there is no risk of your seeing the answer before you tackle the next puzzle We are also including a compilation of IQ tests with assessment

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g1 te A17 ANAGRAM PUZZLE AUDREY AUSTIN, AUSTRALIA

A small repertory company touring overseas, placed an advertisement in English in a small,

foreign-language newspaper Unfortunately

the type became muddled, and the advertise- ment appeared thus:

ALBINO THEREAT SERPENTS

THELMA NO GATES

ACHE THING - NET HARPS (TON SEATER DYNAMO) RATS: LARCHES INWARD STARTLE: RIDING TURNIP PROCURED: SINNED ADVISE CREDITOR: MARGIN WANDERS

CRIPES FORM THERE HANDOUTS LIAR Can you interpret the original message?

Q2 we A38

TRANSPOSALS

MITZI CHRISTIANSEN KUEHL, USA

A transposal is a word whose letters can be re- arranged to make new words - the letters of the word NAME can be used to make the words MANE and AMEN, for instance Find the trans- posals in the verses that follow For example:

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A diner from Kalamazoo

Fished pesky black »0« from his stew

Said the waiter, with cool, ‘The better to drool

Imparts quite a oœœ with it, too!’ Answer: gnat, tang

1 Dame !&&&!&!!, harsh and grand,

Vents all her !!!! on the land She ices hills and fields below,

And bends &&&& branches with her snow

And parents are fearing

That it’s not even for Hallowe’en

There once was x !!!!!-loving QQO

Decided to hassle a rat The rat ran amuck,

QOQxIHH?? struck

?? died of rat rabies That's that! I'd rather sit in my /////xxx

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5 There is a story (apocryphal, perhaps, but no less interesting) about the curmudgeonly response made by George Bernard Shaw to a formal invitation from a certain society

matron Her name has been forgotten, hence the pseudonym in the invitation, which read: ‘Mr and Mrs Vanderfeller Rockebilt will be at home Sunday afternoon, March 29.’ To which GBS replied: ‘GBS also.’

"Twas not the hapless »x0000x That GBS objected to

"Twas just the »0000x of the note And all that social ballyhoo

6 There was a fishwife from @@@*xx*@**@

Who loved to swill her xxx

Whenever she'd start to celebrate

The blather would begin

She'd taint her @@@@@ with vulgarity, But ‘twas her only fault

You learned to take it with charity And with a grain of ****

7 Cold ***///// night of snow,

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8 10 11 Viewed through the UUUU )))) of my jaundiced eye,

UU)U)U)) are making me eat humble pie They mess up my copy

And make me look sloppy

Who can believe I've a good alibi?

They 0000xxxx me to make no claim

That could be misconstrued But no, | played the bidding game With great ineptitude

So now they’ve »000000x off to me This ugly statuette

_ An xx©ooœ%x, probably, I never will forget

That °°xx°xx° of summer months,

Romantic °°°° with her allure, Has come to xxxx with us again, Still green and slightly immature My uncle John was not to blame For being in that house

And uncle's not a souse

The truth is that he slipped and fell

And to his great chagrin,

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Were A3 SHORT LIST

LLOYD KING, UK

Find the next word in this list:

Embark, Cotton, Ochre, Calm, Small, Duvet, Frost? Choose from: Dell, Flute, Globule, Orange, Plume 04 ww A57 PRVERB PETER SCHMIES, GERMANY

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ywww A19 KEYW0RDS BOB NEWMAN, UK G-H-Y-Jủ-X-C-D-Q-L-W `AaxaAxa xa a.Aú/ S-T-A-N-E-R- I-O-V \/\INININININS F-Z—-K-U-B-P-M

This is the unfamiliar GHYJXC keyboard, which is unlikely ever to replace the QWERTY one The lines indicate which letters are - considered adjacent to one another We define a ‘keyword’ as a word the letters of which are all contiguous It is not necessary for consecutive letters to be adjacent, as long as the letters of the word as a whole are Examples are Owl, Hazy, Knobkerrie and Misunderstanding Hyphenated words are permitted

Here are some clues for keywords All are straightforward definitions, more or less The number of letters in each solution is given in brackets Each begins with a different letter of the alphabet, although they are not in alpha-

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1 Ancient Ship (11) — 14 Herb (9)

2 Answer (9) 15 Horror-struck (6)

3 Ask (7) 16 Indian harem (6)

4 Attach (6) 17 Loss (11)

5 Below strength (12) 18 Old bicycle (10)

6 Bet (6) 19 Pirate ship (5)

7 Canoe (5) 20 Plagiarized (7)

8 Cushion (6) 21 Platforms (8)

9 Die (6) 22 Sedative (7)

10 Exaggeratéd (7) 23 Shrubby plant (9) 11 Express gratitude 24 Sociable (5) person (5) Garish (5) 25 Toad (10) —> ot WN Harness-maker (7) 26 Tree (6) g6 W AGS SYN0NYM TEST ADAM ALEXIS, UK

In this example the line of letters above the keywords RED and VILLAIN has been used to complete the words CRIMSON and CRIMINAL, which are synonyms of the words RED and VILLAIN respectively

MINALSONM

RED VILLAIN

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In some of the questions a phrase is used

instead of a keyword You have 25 minutes to

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Q7 W A29 MISSING LETTERS

LLOYD KING, UK

KIW is to RKRHE as WANIB is to ?

Choose from KESDT, RDEAC, BOTG, UCAN, HTY, TFS Qs Ww A20 R W0RD 0UlZ

KENT L ALDERSHOF, USA

What do these words have in common - apart from having four letters? —

ABLE IRES LICK RAGS

ACED LAGS LIES RAIL

ACES LAIR LINT RANK

AILS LAKE LIPS RAYS

AINT LAME LOGS REED

AIRS LANK LOUT RILL

ARMS LAPS LOWS RISK

EARS LASH LUFF RITZ

EAST LAWS LUKE ROCK

EATS LAYS OILS RUMP

EELS LEAS OLIO USED

EWER LEER OURS USES

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Qo ve A88

MA6I0 SQUARE

PAUL ACKERLEY, UK

A 5x5 magic word square

is one in which the same five words read the same both across and down The answer to each of the five clues is a five-letter word

that, when placed in its

appropriate position in the

grid, will form a 5 x 5 word square Clues (in no particular order) Conspires Insignificant Banish Tantalize Concise g10 www A79 SUWMI AND PRDDUDT

PETER SCHMIES, GERMANY

A man goes into a shop, buys four articles and pays £7.11 for them When he gets home he finds that if he multiplies the prices of the four articles with each other, the result is £7.11, too What did each article cost?

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011 ww | A91

SUBSTITUTION

LLOYD KING, UK

If TA times | equals CAB, and TE times TILE equals CLOTH, what does TO times IN equal — BAT, HINT, POISON, TABLE or TOOL

g12 www A21

FOUR-LETTER WORDS

MARCEL FEENSTRA, THE NETHERLANDS

Which word is the odd one out? DENT PIED MAIN — REIN NOSE RIDE 013 wew A39 DANNY LRSSES RAY WILBUR, USA

What are the names of these young ladies?

1 Put her in a can and she becomes a North American

2 Put her in a can and she becomes a warden 3 Put her in a can and she becomes a boat

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Q14 ww A48

S0REEN SCRAMBLEF

STEVE PLATER, UK

Here is a puzzle for the film buffs among you Each sentence is an anagram of the title of a

well-known film and of the name(s) of its star or (two) co-stars — the asterisks indicate the number of stars There is a clue in each case to the film

1 Farm moron shunned man if autistic (**) 2 Sinful reason why M ran to Rose - vice (*) 3 Hot jam in core — need fans handy (*)

Q15 WwwW R10

TRE FENE

MEL BEBEE, USA

A farmer has a triangular pasture that is 100 metres on each side He wants to install an interior fence that will divide his pasture into two equal areas,

but he finds the cost

per metre of fence is @

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Q16 ve ALPHABET CROSSWORD 1 AUDREY AUSTIN, AUSTRALIA A30

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we AGO

MITZI CHRISTIANSEN KUEHL, USA A spate of bad weather rebuses

(5, 4, 4, 8, 5, 11)

‘This ///// [w) makes the month replete,’ Said Alice, mid a tea

‘Don't mind the nor even heat; But hate ITHUY.’

‘The time has come,’ the ///// Hare said, ‘To break this party up

| spy a looming HEA

And hate rain in my cup.’

018 ve A76

CHRIS HARDING, AUSTRALIA

Insert the missing letters in the two lines

below

Q? TUOQOAD?J5SLX VN

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Yyw As9 CROSS DOMINOES

SUSAN THORPE, UK

We have an incomplete domino set All those with halves of five spots or six spots are missing, so that the highest number is the double four The set, up to and including the double four, is complete — 15 dominoes in all Insert these 15 dominoes into the cross in such a way that the sum of the spots of the

eight dominoes in the

vertical row is 50 per cent greater than the sum of the spots of the seven dominoes in the hori-

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920 Ww A97 ñ-R-R-RIDDLE 1 MITZI CHRISTIANSEN KUEHL, USA

In the following crossword puzzle a letter or letters occupy the squares to form complete words horizontally and vertically The number in each square represents the number of letters to be placed in that square — for

example, there are three letters in square 1-1 1 2 3 4 1 @ @ @ @ 2 @® @ @® @ 3 @® @ @® @ 4 @® @ @® @® Across 1 Decried; depreciated 2 Man-made watercourse 3 Archetypal milk dispenser 4 Greek letter (plural)

Down

1 Olympic event; quoit 2 A model or pattern

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WH a He JOHN CLARKE, UK AG7

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Jack was rather disappointed with the stan- dard of these answers Nine of the teams each named just one card correctly, while the

other three (whose team numbers totalled 20)

had none right at all

What was the correct answer to the question?

And what do you suppose the question itself was? Q22 www A37 SPOCKULAR GEOFF HINCHLIFFE, UK

A hemispherical planetarium, 65 metres in diameter, contains a rectangular carpet, the

four corners of which all just touch the outer wall, The image of Vulcan, projected on the

ceiling, is a different integral number of metres from each of the four carpet-corners If these distances total 180 metres, what are

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023 Wwe | A46

RPRRTMENT BLIEKS

LLOYD KING, UK

Which three windows in the last apartment block should be black? nmnllnnnl[nmnllannnl[lann mnr:||n nn|Ìn ni || nm||nnr nmnllnnnlÌännllännl|lann nmmlÌmmr||n m [ng n||n ri đinl||ännl|Ìn mn||äannl|lann 024 fete A58 aE 210) 4 PETER SCHMIES, GERMANY Five suspects — of whom one is guilty — have been interrogated by police Who is the culprit, if just three of these statements are

correct?

Al said: ‘Don is the culprit.’ Bud said: ‘Il am not guilty.’ Charlie said: ‘It was not Eddie.”

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YyyrYt R96

SH00T-0UT

CHRIS HARDING, AUSTRALIA

John and Harry are having a shoot-out

because of Mary John’s bullets are off-target by an average of 30mm; Harry's bullets are

off-target by an average of 60mm However,

Harry can shoot 200 bullets for every 100 that John shoots, and we know that the bullet

must be within 20mm to be successful We are trying to make a quick quid, not a

quick kill, so what odds are correct? Q26 Were A11 BATR PUZZLt KEVIN N STONE, UK

You have accidentally left the plug out of the bath and you are trying to fill it with both

taps on

Tap A takes 9 minutes to fill the bath Tap B takes 24 minutes to fill the bath The plug hole takes 36 minutes to empty a full bath

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"ga? — A90 LOGICAL JIGSAWS ADAM ALEXIS, UK

In each of the following, place the pieces into

the grid in the correct positions in order to

deduce the identity of the empty square For example: af Fit into 1/2/1314 the grid: 5l6l7l8 9 101112 13 15/16

It can be seen that the empty square should contain 14 to complete the grid in a logical way

You have 30 minutes to complete the six

questions and a performance rating is given

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028 W A86

CRRRRDES

MITZI CHRISTIANSEN KUEHL, USA

In a charade two or more words in sequence

make up a longer word — woo-den (wooden), for instance Find the words in the following

charades For example:

Xxxx, xxxx, Yyyy got the zzzz again Poor, Poor Will, whip

(Father, mad, failed to count to ten.) Now, xxxx Yyyy in the nighttime chill poor, Will

Sits and cries with the zzzzxxxxyyyy whippoorwill

1 At Scrabble play he has no peer | know | had a blank zzzz here And he had zilch; he told me so

It's xxxx yyyyy now, | know

What happened when | got a beer, That caused my blank to disappear?

It really takes a con-man's skill To practise xxx this yyyyyzzzz

2 ‘Xxx sad but true: My man walked out,’ She sniffled through her xxxyyy,

‘I'll yyy to make him see the light My pride is not the xxyyy.’

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Q29 WHE A4 TŨILETS DUT 0F 0RDER

JAMES HARBECK, CANADA

Motivated by the assertion ‘there is nothing new under the sun’, plus a dose of John Cage, Poetaster Escritor-zuelo, poet of little renown, decided to take quotes from five poems by a

poet much better than he and re-arrange the

words to make his own masterpiece He even added two commas and a question mark! You, of course, being intellectually voracious, are just dying to know who the poet is and what the poems and quotes are Poetaster only let on that the sources are a love song, a prelude, something about a desolate place, one on

empty humans and a Christmas piece You have to work out the rest for yourself The poet is the title of this poem

The ancient unreal worlds

Gathering under the fog of death Revolve with winter,

Fuel our ends

Women go and visit

Oh, what is it | should ask of the lots? ‘Be but another way?’

Do not let us make a bang The world, like a vacant city,

A whimper in this brown dawn,

Is not glad

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Q30 WH A59 Se aU KENT L ALDERSHOF, USA A lazy newspaper reporter wrote about a convention:

People gathered from many places They came from Atro, Auda and Capa; from Feli, Fero and Rapa More came from Saga, Sala and Tena; from Vera, Viva and Vora Some came from Toni and Toxi; others from Scar and Velo

Conventioneers were also observed from Dupli, Ethni, Lubri, Publi and Rusti Many signed in from Loqua, Menda, Preda and Pugna A few hailed from Preco

Many other communities were also repre-

sented To name just a few, we saw badges

from Compli, Infeli, Simpli, Pertina, Chromati and Perspica

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Q31 ve A22

CRYPTIC W0RD S0URRE 1

AUDREY AUSTIN, AUSTRALIA

A 6x6 magic word square is one in which the

same six words read the same both across and down The answer to each of the six clues is a six-letter word that, with the other five

answers, will from a 6 x 6 word square 12 3 4 5 6 oa & ® N = Clues

A century in foundation essentials Still burning a candle, perhaps? Ringo’s naughty Spaniard

Disregard Ringo’s mysterious trip to the East Century hero's odd jobs

Snake rests uneasily, resulting in tension

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Q32 Wwww A69 IEBRERKER

LLOYD KING, UK

Sherlock Holmes was relaxing in his study when a snowball struck one of the windows overlooking the street below, causing it to shatter He went over to the window to inves- tigate and, looking out, just caught sight of the Willoughby triplets, Danny, Mark and Oliver, disappearing rapidly round a street corner The next morning he received this anonymous message:

? Willoughby (am certain he broke your window

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033 ww A31 KNIGHT’S MOVES PETER SCHMIES, GERMANY

A chess knight makes two trips, visiting every letter-field once only and without leaving the

respective square on each trip What is the

15-letter word he spells in each square? N|E|A|S vÌE|lEln S|T|E|T RII|PMES/E/E N|S|E|I U|T|N|S SIT|O|N 034 weve R47 KEVIN N STONE, UK

In a game of 36 players that lasts for exactly 15 minutes, there are four reserves, who alter- nate equally with each player This means that all players, including the reserves, are on the pitch for the same length of time How long

is that?