5 hours ago
10
Today’s puzzles – and prize draw! – are about different types of deception.
1. Super syllabus
A school cohort has two classes. At the end of the year 1, all pupils are graded. When all the pupils are listed in grade order, the median pupil is a C.
(The median is the middle value in a data set listed from smallest to largest.)
For year 2, the school introduces a new syllabus. At the end of the year, all pupils are again graded. Now when the pupils are listed in grade order, the median has dropped to a D.
Devise a scenario in which the new syllabus in fact improved every pupil’s grade.
2. Peculiar poll
Two market research companies, Smith Surveys and Jones Polls, each conduct a poll on support for a government policy.
Both polls of 125 people show that the policy is more popular amongst men.
READ THE DATA BELOW TO CHECK THAT THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE IS CORRECT.
Is the policy more popular amongst men or amongst women?
Data from Smith Surveys. Men who support the policy: 21/25, or 84 per cent. Women who support the policy: 80/100, or 80 per cent.
Data from Jones Polls: Men who support the policy: 22/100, or 22 per cent. Women who support the policy: 5/25, or 20 per cent.
3. Anguish Languish (prize draw!)
Anguish Languish is an ersatz language created by the US linguist Howard L Chase in which an English text is “translated” into a nonsense string of similar-sounding English words. (i.e English language = anguish languish.) Chase invented it to show “the marvelous versatility of a language in which almost anything can, if necessary, be made to mean something else.”
Here’s a full sentence:
Ones her punnet I’m, inner smell vial itch they’re lift a misty verse buoy culled Pitter.
If you say it aloud to someone who has not seen it written down they may hear:
“Once upon a time in a small village there lived a mischievous boy called Peter.”
This example was written by top maths communicator Kit Yates and appears in his smart new book, You Don’t Know What You’re M ss ng. The book is about the hidden gaps that shape how we understand the world, such as survey results that are destorted before they reach us, or the gap in language between sound and meaning.
PRIZE! I will give a copy of Kit’s book to the most amusing sentence of Anguish Languish that you can send me by 4pm today. All words need to be English, and the more common the better. My decision is final. I’ll include some of my favourites at 5pm UK.
I’ll also have the solutions to the first two puzzles at 5pm UK.
POLICE NOSE BOIL ERRS – instead converse in Anguish Languish
You Don’t Know What You’re M ss ng by Kit Yates is available to buy on the Guardian Bookshop for £22.50.
I’ve been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.
