Brain Teasers
Card Game
My favorite card game was invented a while back. It was invented a year after my father was born, and a year before my mother was born. My oldest parent's age is more than 20+19, but less than 82/2. When was this game invented?
Hint
/ means "divided by" on a calculator.Answer
39 years ago.If the oldest parent is between 39 and 41, then he/she is 40. If the game was invented one year after the oldest parent (the dad), then it was 39 years ago (40-1).
Hide Hint Show Hint Hide Answer Show Answer
What Next?
View a Similar Brain Teaser...
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Solve a Puzzle
Comments
Please comment on my teaser! I need feedback from everyone to help improve future teasers! Thank you very much!
This teaser was an easy one. If you want to improve you teasers try making them harder.
OK so you are saying Your oldest parent is between 39 and 41. So I presume you mean 40 (if it can be any of the others then you can't work this out)
That means his DOE is 1962 or possibly 1961 because we don't know if he already had his birthday yet. Which means the game could have been invented in either 61 or 62. If you say he could be 39 or 41 then you have 1960-1963 when the game could have been invented I think.
I don't want to criticise, (only fools ....) but we'll keep this constructive. There is no need to say 20 + 19 or 82/2.
If you have an idea, try and think it through as best you can, and make up your puzzle to best describe the situation. Just put your puzzle accross as simply as you can. People will appreciate it!
I think the best thing to do then is to try and solve it yorself, and then you will see if there is a mistake or whatever!
I don't think its just about getting it accepted, try and submit a good teaser that people like. Its pretty annoying spending time reading some of the crap some people submit just to get points.
That means his DOE is 1962 or possibly 1961 because we don't know if he already had his birthday yet. Which means the game could have been invented in either 61 or 62. If you say he could be 39 or 41 then you have 1960-1963 when the game could have been invented I think.
I don't want to criticise, (only fools ....) but we'll keep this constructive. There is no need to say 20 + 19 or 82/2.
If you have an idea, try and think it through as best you can, and make up your puzzle to best describe the situation. Just put your puzzle accross as simply as you can. People will appreciate it!
I think the best thing to do then is to try and solve it yorself, and then you will see if there is a mistake or whatever!
I don't think its just about getting it accepted, try and submit a good teaser that people like. Its pretty annoying spending time reading some of the crap some people submit just to get points.
So you're saying my teasers are crap?!
No, I didn't read cathalmccabe's comment as saying that your teasers were crap. He or she was criticizing others who post poorly thought-out teasers because they don't care.
You obviously care, or you wouldn't have asked for feedback to improve. And cathalmccabe must have thought you cared in order to take the time to give you detailed feedback.
What you need to do depends in part on who your audience is. I think my 9-year old son would enjoy this teaser, and part of the challenge
for him would be working through the arithmetic to figure out the older parent's age. Adults are more likely to see 20+19 and ask "why didn't she just say 39," since the addition
is trivial for them. I think it's great to have some teasers for younger kids on the site here - just recognize that you may not please everyone with them.
Maybe there should be a separate category or designation for puzzles that are especially kid oriented.
You obviously care, or you wouldn't have asked for feedback to improve. And cathalmccabe must have thought you cared in order to take the time to give you detailed feedback.
What you need to do depends in part on who your audience is. I think my 9-year old son would enjoy this teaser, and part of the challenge
for him would be working through the arithmetic to figure out the older parent's age. Adults are more likely to see 20+19 and ask "why didn't she just say 39," since the addition
is trivial for them. I think it's great to have some teasers for younger kids on the site here - just recognize that you may not please everyone with them.
Maybe there should be a separate category or designation for puzzles that are especially kid oriented.
One thing that does hurt a teaser is unintentionally having
multiple answers. In this teaser, you can clearly figure
out that your dad's age is 40 (the "more than" and "less than"
wording is clear on that point), but translating that back to
the year your dad was born is a problem for two reasons.
The first is the point that cathalmccabe noted: we don't know
whether or not your dad has had his birthday yet this year.
The other problem is a more subtle: the teaser may be on this site
for several years (assuming the site continues indefinitely), and there is
no indication of what year a problem was submitted when one is reading the problem. Someone reading
your teaser in 2004 will have a totally different idea of what "this year"
is than your readers do now, and this will change the correct answer.
If you realize these kinds of problems ahead of time, you could fix them by
putting this information into the teaser. For example,
you could have started off your teaser with "At my dad's birthday earlier
this year, we celebrated by playing my favorite card game, and then watched
the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City." That would pin down both those
points, and made the answer clearly 1963 (the year after your father was born).
To find these kinds of problems ahead of time, you can try to solve your
own teaser like someone who doesn't already know what the answer is, and maybe
give it to some friends to solve so you can see what kinds of difficulties they encounter.
multiple answers. In this teaser, you can clearly figure
out that your dad's age is 40 (the "more than" and "less than"
wording is clear on that point), but translating that back to
the year your dad was born is a problem for two reasons.
The first is the point that cathalmccabe noted: we don't know
whether or not your dad has had his birthday yet this year.
The other problem is a more subtle: the teaser may be on this site
for several years (assuming the site continues indefinitely), and there is
no indication of what year a problem was submitted when one is reading the problem. Someone reading
your teaser in 2004 will have a totally different idea of what "this year"
is than your readers do now, and this will change the correct answer.
If you realize these kinds of problems ahead of time, you could fix them by
putting this information into the teaser. For example,
you could have started off your teaser with "At my dad's birthday earlier
this year, we celebrated by playing my favorite card game, and then watched
the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City." That would pin down both those
points, and made the answer clearly 1963 (the year after your father was born).
To find these kinds of problems ahead of time, you can try to solve your
own teaser like someone who doesn't already know what the answer is, and maybe
give it to some friends to solve so you can see what kinds of difficulties they encounter.
well this depends on what the year is.
The answer should just have been 39 years ago.
To post a comment, please create an account and sign in.
Follow Braingle!