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by windowshopping
456 days ago
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The "random person" you picked is likely very, very intelligent and not at all a good random sample. I'm not saying this is difficult to the extent that it merits academic focus, but it is NOT a simple problem and I suspect less than 1% of the population could solve this in half an hour "with no special math skills." You have to be either exceedingly clever or trained in a certain type of reasoning or both. |
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In my experience, the difference between someone who solves this type of logic puzzle and someone who doesn't, has more to do with persistence and ability to maintain focus, rather than "intelligence" in terms of problem-solving ability per se. I've worked with college students helping them learn to solve these kinds of problems (eg. as part of pre-interview test prep), and in most cases, those who solve it and those who don't have the same rate of progress towards the solution as long as they're actively working at it. The difference comes in how quickly they get frustrated (at themselves mostly), decide they're not capable of solving it, and give up on working on it further.
I mention this because this frustration itself comes from a belief that the ability to solve these belongs some "exceedingly clever" people only, and not someone like them. So, this kind of thinking ends up being a vicious cycle that keeps them from working on their actual issues.