For years, numerous people have asked me to write this book after they were intrigued with working on these and similar problems that appeared in the various newspapers and airline magazines I write for. The problems in this book are my best and most interesting selections that will get you to think and increase your creativity. They will also help you develop your intelligence so that you will do better on all standardized tests , including the SAT, ACT, GMAT, LSAT, and GRE. Most importantly, they will give you something to look forward to and enjoy aside from your daily routine.
Many entries include an interesting anecdote about the problem and why it is so baffling, so you will get insight into a new way to think. I have also provided detailed explanations (some of which I have never before divulged) for the more difficult problems. Whatever your daily routine may be, the brain teasers in this book will challenge you to use your mind in a highly productive and rewarding way.
MY STORY
When I was in fifth grade, I had to take an IQ test. I scored 90, which is below normal and considered “dull.” Although I was not told my IQ, I noticed that my teachers were not paying much attention to me and were patronizing me as if I were stupid. Later, as friends of mine were skipping grades, I was routed to the “dull classes,” which embarrassed me and made me feel inferior. I felt as if I would never get far in life.
I was in seventh grade when a math teacher at my junior high school in Brooklyn, New York, told my father that he was shocked that I had only a 90 IQ. To my teacher, I seemed much smarter than that. My father was shocked to learn that I had scored a 90 on the IQ test and obtained an IQ test that was currently being administered. He gave me the test.
However, instead of actually taking it (as I had before), I started looking the test over to see what had caused me to get such a low score. This started my fascination with testing and critical thinking. I realized that certain thinking skills were being tested and that a person could actually develop those skills and hone them. I also noticed that there was a generic process to problem solving and thinking. This process was based on extracting something curious from a problem and using that to find the rest of the solution. This process provided the mechanism to think by “synthesizing” rather than just panic and rush to find an answer. As my school career unfolded, I increased my IQ to 126. I then increased the development of my thinking skills and obtained a 150.
I developed an obsession with seeing how problems can be solved. I eventually got accepted into an elite high school, and I started commenting on teachers’ exams by noting on my paper, “This question could be made more interesting by adding so and so,” or “This is a poor question; use this instead of that.” Most of my teachers did not find this amusing (I even got detention for this behavior), but a few did—the ones who had a real interest in the learning mechanism. I started to become fascinated in how nature works, why things work the way they do, and how problems can be solved. This launched my interest in physics.
But after receiving my PhD, teaching, doing some high-powered research in physics, and even getting invited all over the world to lecture on some of the theories I developed, I realized that there was a much more serious problem to solve. There were all these young people out there who were branded like I was—dull—and were not given an opportunity to show their true talents and perhaps even genius. I felt like I was living in Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” in which he writes, “Many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweet fragrance on the desert air.” I realized I had a mission in life. There are all these people out there who could be great scientists, journalists, or other professionals, people who could develop their
Many entries include an interesting anecdote about the problem and why it is so baffling, so you will get insight into a new way to think. I have also provided detailed explanations (some of which I have never before divulged) for the more difficult problems. Whatever your daily routine may be, the brain teasers in this book will challenge you to use your mind in a highly productive and rewarding way.
MY STORY
When I was in fifth grade, I had to take an IQ test. I scored 90, which is below normal and considered “dull.” Although I was not told my IQ, I noticed that my teachers were not paying much attention to me and were patronizing me as if I were stupid. Later, as friends of mine were skipping grades, I was routed to the “dull classes,” which embarrassed me and made me feel inferior. I felt as if I would never get far in life.
I was in seventh grade when a math teacher at my junior high school in Brooklyn, New York, told my father that he was shocked that I had only a 90 IQ. To my teacher, I seemed much smarter than that. My father was shocked to learn that I had scored a 90 on the IQ test and obtained an IQ test that was currently being administered. He gave me the test.
However, instead of actually taking it (as I had before), I started looking the test over to see what had caused me to get such a low score. This started my fascination with testing and critical thinking. I realized that certain thinking skills were being tested and that a person could actually develop those skills and hone them. I also noticed that there was a generic process to problem solving and thinking. This process was based on extracting something curious from a problem and using that to find the rest of the solution. This process provided the mechanism to think by “synthesizing” rather than just panic and rush to find an answer. As my school career unfolded, I increased my IQ to 126. I then increased the development of my thinking skills and obtained a 150.
I developed an obsession with seeing how problems can be solved. I eventually got accepted into an elite high school, and I started commenting on teachers’ exams by noting on my paper, “This question could be made more interesting by adding so and so,” or “This is a poor question; use this instead of that.” Most of my teachers did not find this amusing (I even got detention for this behavior), but a few did—the ones who had a real interest in the learning mechanism. I started to become fascinated in how nature works, why things work the way they do, and how problems can be solved. This launched my interest in physics.
But after receiving my PhD, teaching, doing some high-powered research in physics, and even getting invited all over the world to lecture on some of the theories I developed, I realized that there was a much more serious problem to solve. There were all these young people out there who were branded like I was—dull—and were not given an opportunity to show their true talents and perhaps even genius. I felt like I was living in Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” in which he writes, “Many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweet fragrance on the desert air.” I realized I had a mission in life. There are all these people out there who could be great scientists, journalists, or other professionals, people who could develop their
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