Partner content produced by the Mantis Quiz Network.
Before we begin: do not scroll ahead. It will not work if you scroll ahead. We know when you scroll ahead.
The test
- Think of a number between 1 and 10. Any number. Have it clearly in mind.
- Multiply it by 9.
- If the result has two digits, add them together. (If it has one digit, keep it.)
- Subtract 5.
- Take that number and find its letter in the alphabet. 1 is A, 2 is B, 3 is C, and so on.
- Think of a country that begins with that letter.
- Now take the second letter of that country, and think of an animal beginning with it.
- Think of the colour of that animal.
Have all three? The country, the animal, the colour?
Good.
Our answer
There are no grey elephants in Denmark.
If we got it, you are one of roughly four million. If we did not, you are one of the small group who thought of the Dominican Republic and an octopus, and you should be aware that everybody finds you exhausting.
How it works, since you asked
It is arithmetic wearing a hat.
Every multiple of 9 between 9 and 90 has digits that add to 9. Nine times anything, added together, is nine. So step four always produces 4, and 4 is always D, no matter which number you picked. You were never choosing anything.
The rest is people being predictable. Asked for a country beginning with D, the overwhelming majority say Denmark. Second letter E, animal beginning with E: elephant. Colour of an elephant: grey. Three forced choices dressed up as free ones.
“The trick is not that we read your mind. The trick is that there was very little to read.”
Mantis Quiz Network
The second part
Place your phone flat on the table in front of you. Take your hands off it completely. Concentrate on the screen.
We will now move it.
…
It did not move.
It never moves. Four million people have now put a phone on a table and stared at it, and it has never once moved, and this is the single most shared section of the entire quiz.
You did it as well, and there is no version of this article in which you did not.
