It’s important to keep your mind active throughout the day and one way to achieve this is by challenging yourself to a brainteaser – so why not give this crayon one a go?
Solving brainteasers on a daily basis is a fun way to train your brain as it increases your lateral thinking skills. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to solve every single one first time around, as some require more brain power than others.
This seems to be the case for many TikTok users who have been left stumped by a “simple” crayon brainteaser. It shows four crayons laid out to create a square shape and asks users to move one crayon to create a circle instead. While some suggest moving one out of the picture entirely, they point out how this makes a triangle rather than a circle.
Ready to give it a go?
Others suggest breaking part a crayon to create a rounder edge to the square in an attempt to turn it into a circle – but this doesn’t work either.
If you’ve tried to solve it and just can’t work it out, or think you’ve cracked it, get ready to see the answer below.
Answer
It turns out the solution is much simpler than most players thought. All you need to do is pick up one of the crayons and draw a circle within the square they create.
However, not everyone believes this solution is ‘fair’, with one user saying: You said move, not draw.”
Another user added: “I knew it!” A third user said: “I have nothing to say…”
One more user said: “Bro, my jaw dropped at the end.” While others couldn’t help but laugh at the solution, one user added: “Thanks for the laugh.”
But this isn’t the only brainteaser to have puzzled people recently as a question Google interviewees were allegedly asked sparked a discussion on social media.
According to TikTok creator Tanya Zakowich, who is known as @pinkpencilmath on social media, the corporation used to ask its job candidates a brainteaser in their interviews and didn’t hire anyone who failed it.
In a video, she said: “If you don’t know the prisoner hat riddle, you’re going to love this one. It’s a super classic brainteaser that was commonly asked in job interviews at Google.”
Explaining the riddle, she says: “There were four prisoners on a staircase all facing the same direction. A brick wall separates prisoner 4 from the rest.”
She says prisoner 1 can see prisoners 2 and 3, while prisoner 2 can only see prisoner 3 and prisoners 3 and 4 cannot see anyone.
“All four prisoners are wearing hats. They are told there are only two black hats and white white hats. However, they do not know the colour of the hats they are personally wearing.
“The prisoners were told to shout out the colour of the hat they’re wearing as soon as they know what colour it is.” Knowing this, she says the question is: “Who is the first person to shout out correctly – and why?”
Setting out the rules, the prisoners cannot turn around to look at each other, move in any other formation, or take their own hats off.
Did you manage to figure it out? Check the correct answer.
However, in 2013 Google is believed to have scaled back these questions, with former chief of human resources telling the New York Times they couldn’t “predict anything” and primarily were there to “make the interviewer feel smart.”