#25. More brain teaser games for job interviews

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Let’s exer­cise our frontal lobes (that deal with plan­ning, among oth­er things), and pari­etal lobes (cal­cu­la­tions) with some quick brain teas­er games of the kind often used in job interviews.

Please try to guess the answers to the ques­tions below (you don’t need to know, or research, the right answer, sim­ply try to “guessti­mate” an appro­pri­ate range).

Ques­tions:

1) How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

2) In 1999, how were these baby boy names ranked by pop­u­lar­ity: Kevin, Jose, Hugh.

3) What is the weight of a large com­mer­cial airplane?

Answers:

1)  About 500,000, assum­ing the bus is 50 balls high, 50 balls wide, and 200 balls long.

2) Rank­ings of baby boy names in 1999, accord­ing to Social Secu­rity Admin­is­tra­tion: 1. Jose (#30), 2. Kevin (#32), 3. Hugh (#830).

3) For a Boe­ing 747:
– Emp­ty: around 400,000 pounds (lbs), or 181 met­ric tons
– Max­i­mum Take­off Weight: around 825,000 pounds, or 374 met­ric tons
– For con­text, the weight of an emp­ty Hum­mer is 8,600 pounds.

 

 

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Comments

  1. Adam says

    1. 30 pairs
    2. Bar­bara, Emily, Amber, Tracy
    3. Kevin, Jose , Gary, Hugh
    4. 4 thou­sand tons

  3. Alvaro says

    1) We don’t know how many pairs you have had 🙂

    2) Rank­ings of baby girl names in 1999:
    http://www.thinkbabynames.com/popular/0/United+States/1999
    Emi­ly #1
    Amber #41
    Bar­bara: #475
    Tra­cy #700

    Rank­ings of baby boy names in 1999:
    http://www.thinkbabynames.com/popular/1/United+States/1999
    Jose #30
    Kevin #32
    Gary #290
    Hugh #830

    3) For a Boe­ing 747:
    http://portal.aircraft-info.net/article3.html

    Emp­ty: around 400,000 pounds (lbs), or 181,000 met­ric tons
    Max­i­mum Take­off Weight: around 825,000 pounds, or 374,000 met­ric tons

    The weight of an emp­ty Hum­mer is 8,600 pounds

  5. Chad W Smith says

    How many pairs did you expect Adam to have? 100 — 12?

    I’m a 29 year old male, and I guessti­mate I’ve had about 40 shoes in my life (that’s 20 pair). I have about 6 to 8 now, and I only wear one pair. But I’ve had all of them (except the ones I’m wear­ing now) for a num­ber of years. I wore one pair of shoes — and only one — for a total of 7 years. My $40 Nike High Tops.

  6. Magnus B says

    Just a remark: 400,000 pounds is about 181,000 kg, which is 181 met­ric tons. 

    And with an inac­cu­rate num­ber like this, you should real­ly round off the con­vert­ed val­ue even more, to sug­gest 400,000 lb ~= 200,000 kg.

  7. Mitch says

    - about 50
    — Emi­ly, Amber, Tra­cy, Barbara
    — Hugh, Jose, Gary, Kevin
    — 100,000 kg

    Those are my guesstimations.

  8. Jen says

    Lol, I guessti­mate that I’ve had about 200 shoes… they said shoes, not pairs, I’m 28 which is almost 30 (ugh), at least a 3 pair AVERAGE per year (if not more)… approx. 200, maybe more.