Mental Arithmetic Test
September 19th, 2003It’s a Friday, so here’s a quick test. Answer each question as fast as possible and say your answers out loud. Then scroll down the page. Ready? Here goes…
1) What’s 2 + 3?
2) What’s 4 + 5?
3) What’s 5 - 2?
4) What’s 6 + 5?
5) Name a vegetable.
[scroll down…]
What was your answer for question 5? Was it ‘carrot’? It probably was. Apparently up to 90 % of people will answer ‘carrot’
No-one knows why though a medic friend says it’s because the part of the brain that processes mental arithmetic is the same (or closely linked to) the part that recognises the colour orange.
But - and here’s the interesting bit - carrots in the wild are actually purple. The only reason why carrots are orange, according to the World Carrot Museum (my new favourite site), is that Dutch farmers bred a mutant orange version in a patriotic commemoration of the Dutch royal house.
So there you go. A dinner party trick and some interesting info in one handy blog-sized portion. What more could you want?