How Well Do You Engage in Divergent Thinking?

Self Assessment

This self-assessment estimates how well you engage in divergent thinking to identify problems and their solutions creatively. To some extent, this is a “teaser” exercise to have fun, but it also requires divergent thinking to get the right answer.

This self-assessment consists of 12 questions. For each question, type your brief answer in the space provided. After answering all 12 questions, compare what you wrote with the correct answer along with its explanation.

There is one word in the English language that is always pronounced incorrectly. What is it?

Your Answer:
A man gave one son 10 cents and another son was given 15 cents. What time is it?

Your Answer:
A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is one foot apart. The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12 inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour. When the tide is at it's highest, how many rungs are under water?

Your Answer:
There is a house with four walls. Each wall faces south. There is a window in each wall. A bear walks by one of the windows. What colour is the bear?

Your Answer:
Is half of two plus two equal to two or three?

Your Answer:
There is a room. The shutters are blowing in. There is broken glass on the floor. There is water on the floor. You find Sloppy dead on the floor. How did Sloppy die?

Your Answer:
How much dirt would be in a hole 2 metres deep and 2 metres wide that has been dug with a square edged shovel?

Your Answer:
Suppose you are in Whitehorse, Yukon, and drop a bowling ball from a height of one metre into a bucket of water at 10 degrees Celsius. Then, you drop a bowling ball of the same weight, mass, and size from the same height into another bucket at negative 10 degrees Celsuis. Which ball would hit the bottom of the bucket fastest?

Your Answer:
What is the significance of the following: The year is 1978, thirty-four minutes past noon on May 6th.

Your Answer:
What can go up a chimney down, but can't go down a chimney up?

Your Answer:
If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in the center field?

Your Answer:
What is it that goes up and goes down but does not move?

Your Answer:

Understanding Your Results on the Divergent Thinking Self-Assessment

This self-assessment presents 12 questions that require some degree of divergent thinking. The results show your answer to each question along with the correct answer and an explanation where needed. The results do not provide a score, although you can calculate a score by the percentage of questions where you wrote the correct answer.

Question

There is one word in the English language that is always pronounced incorrectly. What is it?

Correct Answer

Incorrectly.

Your Answer
Question

A man gave one son 10 cents and another son was given 15 cents. What time is it?

Correct Answer

1:45. The man gave away a total of 25 cents. He divided it between two people. Therefore, he gave a quarter to two.

Your Answer
Question

A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is one foot apart. The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12 inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour. When the tide is at it's highest, how many rungs are under water?

Correct Answer

None, the boat rises with the tide.

Your Answer
Question

There is a house with four walls Each wall faces south. There is a window in each wall. A bear walks by one of the windows. What color is the bear?

Correct Answer

White. If all the walls face south, the house is at the North Pole, and the bear, therefore, is a polar bear.

Your Answer
Question

Is half of two plus two equal to two or three?

Correct Answer

Three, if you follow the mathematical orders of operation. Division is performed before addition. So, half of two is one. Then add two, and the answer is three.

Your Answer
Question

There is a room. The shutters are blowing in. There is broken glass on the floor. There is water on the floor. You find Sloppy dead on the floor. How did sloppy die?

Correct Answer

Sloppy is a goldfish. The wind blew the shutters in, which knocked his goldfish-bowl off the table, and it broke, killing him by asphyxiation

Your Answer
Question

How much dirt would be in a hole 2 metres deep and 2 metres wide that has been dug with a square edged shovel?

Correct Answer

None. No matter how big a hole is, it's still a hole: the absence of dirt. Notice, too, that you don't even know how much air is in the hole because the question doesn’t provide the length of the hole.

Your Answer
Question

Suppose you are in Juneau, Alaska and drop a bowling ball from a height of three feet into a bucket of water at 10 degrees Celsius. Then, you drop a bowling ball of the same weight, mass, and size from the same height into another bucket at negative 10 degree Celsuis. Which ball would hit the bottom of the bucket fastest?

Correct Answer

The ball in the bucket of 10 degree C water hits the bottom of the bucket last. Did you think that the water in the negative 10 degree C bucket is frozen? Think again. The question said nothing about that second bucket having anything in it. Therefore, there is no water (or ice) to slow the ball down.

Your Answer
Question

What is the significance of the following: The year is 1978, thirty-four minutes past noon on May 6th.

Correct Answer

The time and month/date/year are 12:34, 5/6/78.

Your Answer
Question

What can go up a chimney down, but can't go down a chimney up?

Correct Answer

An umbrella.

Your Answer
Question

If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in the center field?

Correct Answer

One. If he combines all of his haystacks, they all become one big stack.

Your Answer
Question

What is it that goes up and goes down but does not move?

Correct Answer

The temperature.

Your Answer