Station 5 - Drama Class
Solutions:
Fox, goose and bag
The story
Once upon a time a farmer went to market and purchased a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and hired a boat. But in crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases - the fox, the goose, or the bag of the beans.
If left alone, the fox would eat the goose, and the goose would eat the beans.
The farmer's challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?
Solution
The first step must be to bring the goose across the river, as any other will result in the goose or the beans being eaten. When the farmer returns to the original side, he has the choice of bringing either the fox or the beans across. If he brings the fox across, he must then return to bring the beans over, resulting in the fox eating the goose. If he brings the beans across, he will need to return to get the fox, resulting in the beans being eaten.
Here he has a dilemma, solved by bringing the fox (or the beans) over and bringing the goose back. Now he can bring the beans (or the fox) over, leaving the goose, and finally return to fetch the goose.
His actions in the solution are summarised in the following steps:
1. Bring goose over
2. Return
3. Bring fox or beans over
4. Bring goose back
5. Bring beans or fox over
6. Return
7. Bring goose over
Thus there are seven crossings, four forward and three back.
Wife and husband’s problem.
The story
In the jealous husband’s problem, the missionaries and cannibals become three married couples, with the constraint that no woman can be in the presence of another man unless her husband is also present. Under this constraint, there cannot be both women and men present on a bank with women outnumbering men, since if there were, some woman would be husbandless.
Therefore, upon changing women to cannibals and men to missionaries, any solution to the jealous husband’s problem will also become a solution to the missionaries and cannibals problem.
Solution
Using 11 one-way trips is as follows. The married couples are represented as A (male) and a (female), B and b, and C and c.
Aa Bb CcThis is a shortest solution to the problem, but is not the only shortest solution.
Station 6 - Money Problem
Question:
Three friends take a room for three in a hotel. Each one pays ten dollars. Since, it is a non-peak day, the cost of a room is only $25. So later, the owner realises it and decides to make a rebate of five dollars to these people. He calls an assistant and hand over to him a five dollars note to return back to the men who had rented the room. The three men decided to tip the assistant 2 dollars for his kind service. Thus each man only received a dollar, and therefore, each man paid only nine dollars for the room.
If 3 men paid $9 each one to rent a room ($9 X 3 = $27) because of the fact that they each got $1 back and the assistant keeps $2 as a tip ($27 + $2 = $29)
Where does the final dollar went?
Answer:
The amount of the room is $30
the rebate is $5
Real amount paid: 30 - 5 = $25
If we add $1 of rebate for each character and the $2 recieved by the assistant, we will find our $30.
The 3 men actually paid $25 +$2 =$27 in total, so each pay $9 each and gotten $1 back. The trick in the question is that the tip the assistant received was counted twice.
Station 7 - The Flags with no name
Questions:
Answers:
All flags except one are country flags:
France, Egypt, Australia
Greece, Mongolia, Singapore
Cambodia, East Timor, United Nations
Station 8 - Riddle me Not!
Questions:
1.)
I'm a lever that you ride with a friend:
When he goes up, you go down.
When he goes down, you go up,
And until you both stop,
The fun won't end.
2.)
I look like a "Y" when I'm closed,
I look like an “X” when I'm open.
I'm made of two levers with wedges inside.
You use me for cuttin' and snippin'.
3.)
When you're on the first floor,
You need an inclined plane like me,
To ride upon, to reach the floor
Where you want to be.
Answers:
1.) Seesaw
2.) Scissor
3.) Plank used as a slope.
Station 10 - English Riddles
Questions:
1. What part of the body has the most rhythm?
2. A farmer combined 2 compost heaps with 3 others. How many compost heaps does he have?
3. Who succeeded the first Prime Minister of Singapore?
4. Why was Karl Marx buried at Highgate Cemetery in London?
5. What odd number becomes even when beheaded?
6. Why is the letter E like London?
7. What lives on its own substance and dies when it devours itself?
8. "The beginning of eternity
The end of time and space
The beginning of every end,
And the end of every place."
9. "I never was, am always to be,
No one ever saw me,
nor ever will
And yet I am the confidence of all
To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball."
10. "At night they come without being fetched,
And by day they are lost without being stolen."
Answers:
1. Eardrums
2. One
3. The Second
4. Because he was dead
5. Seven à S/ even
6. Because E is the Capital of England
7. A candle
8. The letter ‘e’
9. Tomorrow
10. Stars
