A little puzzle

[that_punk_guy]

I had an interview Friday afternoon and among the hoops I had to jump through was a series of four tests.

The first was supposed to evaluate your visual logic skills (I forget the correct term for that, sorry.) Take a look at this:



That's not actually from the test, I threw it together in Corel Draw tonight using the same puzzle form. It's probably a little easier than the real test (which had several different diagrams and the operations for each symbol changed each time.) The actual test was multiple choice, but I didn't look at the potential answers until I'd arrived at my own answer, so I figure you guys are smart enough to do without! :-D

(Plus I'm too lazy to come up with some answers.)

Pretty simple, really. But under pressure, not such a walk in the park. Anyway, if you've got that brain-itch, give it a go.

[Vincent]

I've copied it to a sheet of paper to do when I'm awake enough ;-)

I used to be really good at these sorts of things (aptitude tests), but then that was about 8 years ago :-o :-D

[Vincent]

Right, I thought of this when I was surfing a Spectrum forum...

1) MLK

2) Pentagon -> Diamond  (I'm assuming there's meant to be 2 stages in the question, it doesn't make sense if there's not)

3) RSUT

4) Circle

5) Diamond -> Plus


I'm not giving out my workings until I know it's right and so no-one can cheat :-P

[zudobug]

I got:

1) MLK
2) + -> pentagon [edit: not circle ]
3) RSUT
4) o
5) <> -> + (diamond -> plus)

But I need to check that again a few times.

[edit 2]My second answer is different to Vincents, but I tried it his way and (assuming we have both come up with the right theory about how this works) that works too. I did a test like this not so long ago, it was called a psychometric logic test or some such.

I scored very highly on the language, mechanics and spacial sections (99%! such genius!) and not so well on logic or maths. Well, I didn't answer all the questions but the ones I did answer were correct. But that was odd because generally I'm good at logic and maths and suck at machanics and, I think you'll agree, language. So the system sucks.[/edit 2]

-zudo

[Vincent]

[edit 2]My second answer is different to Vincents, but I tried it his way and (assuming we have both come up with the right theory about how this works) that works too.[/edit 2]

Looks like we have the right theory (edit - maybe not the right theory, but the same one :-P).  After reading your post (before your edit 2) I tried it your way and it works fine :-D

[FluffyMcDeath]

1 : MKL

2 : pent diamond or plus pent

3 : RUST

4 : circ

5 : diamond plus

[edit]

I see that between you, you've already covered both variants of Q2.

but why RSUT? I disagree. I think I see what you were thinking based on the horizontal path, but check the vertical.

[zudobug]

but why RSUT? I disagree. I think I see what you were thinking based on the horizontal path, but check the vertical.

Not sure what you mean. I've checked and double-checked and it still seems to work. I'm gonna post my theory so if anyone wants to figure this out for themselves, look away now ;-)

Circle: Chops off last character
Diamond: Mirrors sequence
Pentagon: Chops off first character
Plus: Switches final two characters

-zudo

[that_punk_guy]

Yep, those are the operations as I conceived them. There might be other solutions too (Fluffy's seems slightly different? I haven't gone over it yet.) The intended answers:

1. MLK
2. Diamond -> Circle. The others are valid too. *cough* Deliberate mistake. ;-)
3. RSUT
4. Circle
5. Diamond -> Plus

[Vincent]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:
3 : RUST

but why RSUT? I disagree. I think I see what you were thinking based on the horizontal path, but check the vertical.

Because the Plus switches the last two symbols.

-----

Circle - takes off the last letter
Pentagon - takes off the first letter
Diamond - reverses all the letters
Plus - reverses the las two letters.

-----

From the puzzle itself:

QRST -> diamond (reverses - TSRQ) -> Plus (reverses last two - TSQR) -> TSQR

FGHI -> pentagon (takes off 1st - GHI) -> Plus (reverses last two - GIH) -> GIH

So RSTU -> plus (reverses last 2) -> RSUT

The Plus can't swap the last three letters around as I think you're suggesting as the FGHI -> GIH doesn't follow that.  If the Plus did swap the last three then it would be IHG.

[FluffyMcDeath]

Yes. RSUT.
I guess I had a dyslexic moment with the diamond operator and it pooched my results. (That and an insane preference for real words over nonsense sequences seemed to have biased me).

[Vincent]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:
Yes. RSUT.
I guess I had a dyslexic moment with the diamond operator and it pooched my results. (That and an insane preference for real words over nonsense sequences seemed to have biased me).

:lol:

Here's a solution - steer clear of diamonds :-P