There are only thirteen questions; most of them questions are taken either from the Overcoming Bias blog or studies in cognitive psychology. When everyone who wants to has taken the test (you can post answers below), I'll explain the study that each question comes from, what it proves, and, of course, what the correct answer is.
I don't have any prizes in mind (besides more closely approaching Truth), but if the person who does the best can think of something he/she wants, I might give it to him/her.
1. You have a weighted coin that comes up heads 66% of the time and tails 33% of the time. You flip it twenty times. Which of the following sequences do you think is most likely to exist among those twenty flips?
a) HHHHHH
b) HHTHHT
c) HTTTTH
d) TTTTTT
e) All are equally likely
2. Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Rank the following statements from most probable to least probable:
1. Linda is a teacher in an elementary school.
2. Linda is active in the feminist movement.
3. Linda is a bank teller.
4. Linda works in a bookstore and takes yoga classes.
5. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
6. Linda is an insurance salesman.
3. Consider a person randomly chosen from the phone book named John. We investigate John's personality and find that he is quiet, bright, and likes poetry and classical music. Which of the following is MOST likely true?
a) John is a truck driver
b) John is a professor at an Ivy League school
c) Both of these are equally likely
4. A man has a machine with a button on it. If you press the button, there is a one in five hundred thousand chance that you will die immediately; otherwise, nothing happens. He offers you some money to press the button once. What do you do? Do you refuse to press it for any amount? If not, how much money would convince you to press the button?
5. A cab was involved in a hit-and-run accident. Two cab companies serve the city: the Green, which operates 85% of the cabs, and the Blue, which operates the remaining 15%. A witness identifies the hit-and-run cab as Blue. When the court tests the reliability of the witness under circumstances similar to those on the night of the accident, he correctly identifies the color of the cab 80% of the time and misidentifies it 20% of the time. So...
a) Believe him. The cab was likely blue
b) Don't believe him. The cab was probably green.
c) The cab had an equal chance of being either blue or green.
d) There's no way to tell the probability from this information.
6. You're a politician working on the budget. Which of these seems most worthy of funding?
a) An special team to stop terrorist attacks. Policy analysts say it will stop 95% of planned attacks on your country's soil.
b) Research for curing cancer. Scientists think it will save the lives of 20% of cancer patients.
c) Funding more policemen and detectives. This could cut the homicide rate by 66%
7. Which of these are you most likely to die from?
a) Terrorism!!!
b) Earthquake!!!
c) Asteroid strike!!!
d) Snakebite/spider bite!!!
e) All approximately equal!!!
8. In a standard novel, which of the following would you expect to see most often?
a) Words beginning with the sequence "fij"
b) Words ending with the letter "g"
c) Words beginning with the letter "q"
d) Words ending with the sequence "ing"
9. And which are there more of?
a) words beginning with K, like "king"
b) words with k as the third letter, like "rake"?
10. Counting from one to a million, which are there most of:
a) Numbers with "3" as the last digit
b) Numbers with "9" as the last digit
c) Numbers with either "2" or "5" as the last digit
d) All the same.
11. I am teaching a class, and I write upon the blackboard three numbers: 2-4-6. "I am thinking of a rule," I say, "which governs sequences of three numbers. The sequence 2-4-6, as it so happens, obeys this rule. Each of you will find, on your desk, a pile of index cards. Write down a sequence of three numbers on a card, and I'll mark it "Yes" for fits the rule, or "No" for not fitting the rule. Then you can write down another set of three numbers and ask whether it fits again, and so on. When you're confident that you know the rule, write down the rule on a card. You can test as many triplets as you like." Here's the record of one student's guesses:
4, 6, 2 No
4, 6, 8 Yes
10, 12, 14 Yes
At this point the student wrote down his guess at the rule. What do you think the rule is? Would you have wanted to test another triplet, and if so, what would it be?
12. For the following, you have my guarantee that they are NOT trick questions. They are simple questions of knowledge. The catch is that after each answer, please list a 0-100% confidence level in your answer. 100% means you are absolutely sure your answer is right. 0% means you are absolutely sure your answer is wrong. 50% means you think there's a 50-50 chance your answer is right. For example, if the question was
"What's 1+1?", your confidence should hopefully be near 100%.
1. What's the biggest city (including metropolitan area) in the world?
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
2. What was the largest empire in history?
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
3. Now that Pluto's no longer a planet, which planet is smallest?
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
4. Rank these religions from most to least followers: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
13. Same thing, only this time, you're given the answers. It's from a famous study of US World War II soldiers, along with a summary of historian Arthur Schlesinger's comments on what he thought the reasons for each result were. Please predict how confident you are that you WOULD have chosen the correct answer if you hadn't already known what it was.
Q: Did better educated or less educated soldiers adjust better to war?
A: Better educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems than less educated soldiers, because intellectuals were less prepared for battle stresses than street-smart people.
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
Q: Did Northerners or Southerners adjust to the climate in the Pacific better?
A: Southern soldiers coped better, because Southerners were more accustomed to hot weather.
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
Q: Did white or black privates work harder to get promoted?
A: Black privates were more eager to be promoted, perhaps because the military was one of only a few jobs with almost equal opportunities.
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
Q: Did blacks prefer to work with whites from the North or the South?
A: Most blacks were Southerners, and preferred Southern to Northern white officers because Southern officers were more experienced and skilled in interacting with blacks.
CONFIDENCE LEVEL:
Q: Were soldiers more eager to return home during or after the fighting?
A: They were more eager to return during fighting, as they knew they were in mortal danger.
CONFIDENCE LEVEL: