This is a Self-Referential Aptitude Test, developed by James Propp, at UMass-Lowell.
Each question refers to one or more answers on a different question. You should open a separate document to take notes on your process of elimination. Consider not starting the quiz until you have all of the answers.
This thread in the JetPunk subreddit contains a video that outlines my path for solving this puzzle. If you don't want to know all of the answers, and how you might derive them, definitely don't watch it.
You've made your answer to 17 D, which means 16 and 17 are consecutive questions with identical answers, which violates question 2, which you said only 6 and 7 have consecutive identical answers
Great point! I read question 2 to be identical answers between two consecutive, but only from amongst the five pairs listed in the answer itself. I did dither on this point when working it out. It was like making question 2 puzzle-wide seemed almost too incredibly helpful for eliminating a bunch of answers :)
Great quiz!! Loved it! Printed out three copies to take notes on (with pencil - I'm old school). Took about two hours. Didn't look at hints. Then, when I was satisfied, started the quiz and got 20/20 in about 90 seconds.
I would amend the instructions, though. They say that each question refers to one or more answers on a different question. Question #20 is referred to by other question(s) but does not refer to any other questions.
One is that if I'm not mistaken, the answer to 6 and 17 could be interchangable and:
1. If B is selected for 6, 17 would be D, and then answer to 7 which is open-ended could also be decided as B, then the answer to 11 would be D.
2. If D is selected for 6, then then 17 would be B, then the answer to 7 which is open-ended could be decided as D, then the answer is 11 would be B.
Looks like depending on which answer is selected for 6-17 pair, the final results could change without changing the rest. Looks like the solution is not unique and both these combinations are possible.
Also, the answer to question 9 is really weird. The only way to solve this is based on answer being D, but technically A is also correct, right? I mean both 9 and 10 can have A as the answer!!
If somehow these two are addressed (or someone explains to me where I went wrong) this would be the best test on Jetpunk! :)
Nevermind, I figured it out. Question 2 mentions not each two consecutive answers could be the same. So 9 and 10 cannot have the same answer and 17 cannot be D, because it would be the same as 16. So yeah, the test is correct and I was wrong. What a great fantastic test! Thanks a lot for Sunday night entertaintment!
Although I found peculiar Q7 and Q8, maybe I have misunderstood something here, but ...
Since the answer for 8 is E shouldn't be all the answers in Q7 correct?
It could be 7-A 8-E (four apart), 7-B 8-E (three apart), 7-C 8-E (two apart), 7-D 8-E (one apart), 7-E 8-E (the same). So the answer for 7 should be all of the above or something.
Why is 7 D then? Only to fit to the other numbers?
Yes, D is the only one that fits the other conditions in the quiz caused by the other questions/answers. There are several questions where multiple answers would work if you look at the question alone without reference to the rest of the quiz.
Spent 1.5 hours coming up with a solution, realizing just before submitting it wasn't quite right. Then I spent an additional 2.5 hours with an extremely methodical approach, after which I confidently submitted my answer. Only to find out too late I accidently copied one single answer wrong. After 4 hours of mental Olympics, 19/20. RIP, at least I'm 100% in my heart
I really enjoyed this. I do have a problem with question 5 however. Based on some of the comments, it is clear some people are reading it as "the answer to this question is the same as the answer to question X, but not the other 4", whereas it should be possible to also be the same as the answer to other questions too (kind of like 19 where all the answers are correct on their own).
As all answers to question 7 could be correct if the answer to Q8 is E (and it is), I did not make any assumptions from question 5 and this was almost the last question I came to a definitive answer to.
Dang you weren’t kidding. This was a challenge. I had to refresh because I took a bit more than an hour, but I solved it without any hints and I’ve never felt prouder to get 100% on a Jetpunk quiz. There are a lot of complex sequences of if/then scenarios required to figure it out. Definitely my favorite quiz on the site and one of my favorite logic puzzles ever, would recommend it to anyone who has a couple hours to spare.
That was great fun, and I was very happy to get them all right! A few wrong turns along the way but fortunately none of them required a complete restart. Thanks @mightythor!
We seem to have lost the ability to color fonts to match the background. I tried style="color: #404858;" and style="color: transparent;", but they aren't working. I am guessing the CSS is overriding it.
I got them all in almost an hour on the nose. Did it with pen and paper and no distractions. I actually clicked two of the wrongs boxes when converting my work from paper to computer (so many Bs and Ds!), but the quiz is solvable for sure. Great fun. General tip is to treat every single thing you see--every question, every answer letter, and every number--as a hint.
This was really clever, especially 6 and 7, which was hilarious! I'm not sure how you made this, this is insanely well done!
I'm a little bitter though since I only missed #11 which threw me off when finding #14/#18/#19. I ended up using deductive reasoning to get them right anyhow, but I only got 19/20... I'm not redoing the quiz for getting a score that's 1 higher, though.
I am really curious at your thought process when creating that type of quizz. Could you please explain briefly how you do it?
Got it right on my second try, figuring out my solution could not work after 30 min on my first attempt must have been one of the most frustrating moments of my life :-)
Inspired from this quiz, I ended up creating a quiz series like this. My technique was to start by setting up questions that can lead you to an answer (in some cases, I don't even have the question decided when I choose the answer). After that, I can use the implications of that answer to lead to another answer, and repeat until I finish. Usually the final answer ends up being something that is useless like "What is this question's answer?"
Because I apparently don't have anything better to do on a Friday night, I put together a full walkthrough! You can view it in Google Docs here. I made it as concise and efficient as I could, but, uh, it's still pretty complicated. I hope it's helpful to anyone who needs it!
I think the logic for #9 on pass three is sus -- "meaning the answer to question 11 couldn't be B". We know it is because we know the answer, but why, at the point, couldn't 11 not being B be valid? Tell me if you disagree.
Question 9 is "The next question with the same answer as this one is question," with option (B) being 11, meaning of course that if the answer is B here then the answer to Question 11 must also be B.
Question 11 is "The number of questions preceding this one with the answer B is," with option (B) being 1.
However, we already know that Question 4's answer is B, so if Question 9 is also B that would mean that there are at least 2 questions prior to 11 with the answer B.
In short: If 9 is B, it leads to a paradox where 11 must be B (because of 9's answer) and can't be B (because it's now incorrect). Thus, the answer to 9 can't be B.
nr 9 indeed can't be B because it would lead to too many B's. But eventhough if 9=B then 11=B and finding out 9 can't be B, that doesnt mean that automatically 11Can't be B. I nearly made that mistake. Eliminated both B's as possible answers for 9 and 11. (Luckily caught it right after I made the error, if you don't know where you made a mistake in this quiz because it was several thought processes and decisions ago, you are in trouble ;))
Simply put, just because 9 can't be B that doesn't mean 11 can't be. (and it actually is ;) )
The idea is to read the questions and determine what conclusions you can draw about each one. As you are able to draw conclusions on each question, then conclusions about other questions become apparent (this does not necessarily happen in numerical order).
This is where keeping a separate document can be helpful to keep track of your thinking.
If you are lost, there are hints at the top of the comments to help you. If you are still not having fun, there is a video (linked at top of comments) I put together describing how I solved it.
Very clever! I wonder how one creates a quiz like this. Like, how do people come up with these complicated intertwined hints that makes it difficult without being impossible. It took me some time, but I got it all in the end.
I created a quiz series like this. My technique was to set up 2-4 questions that give you enough information for a start. After that, I work off of that. I then try to repeat the process with the answer found imply with other answers.
I think it's more than fair to call this the "HQ on JP". On most quizzes, it's possible to get 100% on the first pass, almost all others on the second pass. There are a small number that require insane rote memorization and then effort for a hour (e.g. the "all subdivisions" variety), and others that require several attempts to ingrain muscle memory (e.g. 100 wpm typing, at least in my case), but no single one requires as many neurons as this one. Well done.
(side note for QM: I wish there was a way to eliminate/DQ the 50 or 60 quizzes where it's obvious that many people cheat -- e.g. an obscure list of 200, where 15% of takers get 100% correct. Just sayin').
I don't think "Hardest Quiz on JetPunk" is meant to be entirely literal, as it's always possible to make a quiz that has no hints and really random combination of letters as the only type-ins.
You need to consider all the other questions, in particular there's a question asking which is the only odd numbered question where the answer is A. If you've already found a different odd numbered question where the answer is A then it's impossible for question 9 to be A.
If I could read and understand English properly I would have got 20/20 the first time with a touch of assistance, stupid brain seeing proceeding and not preceding but giving up and doing it anyways when I still thought something did not add up.
WOW! So beautiful! I really enjoyed it, thank you!
I think I haven't used info contained in question+answer number 7: I only used it as a check, at the end. Is it possible that there was redundant information? (Just a question, not complaining of course!)
B is incorrect because Question 1 is "the first question with B on its answer" if you select B , then 2nd question's answer is B , but you selected the first B in the 1st question so its wrong.
I did it in sixteen minutes with the aid of an excel spreadsheet. I somehow got number 3 wrong but nothing else and I’m not sure how that works with all the vowel and consonant questions, but I’ll take it!
Edit: Looking at the spreadsheet, I realized I had it right on there and entered it wrong.
I loved this quiz. There's also one thing to mention, but this is a SPOILER, so don't read this if you want to try it for yourself.
Question 12 can also be solved without needing to answer any questions.
If we look at question 8, there are 5 numbered possibilities for the amount of vowel answers in the quiz; 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Since we know there are 20 questions. We can say that the amount of consonant answers can either be 16, 15, 14, 13 or 12.
We can compare these 5 numbers to the statements in question 12. 16 is only an even number, 15 is an odd number but also divisible by 5, 14 is also only an even number, 13 is an odd number but also a prime number, and finally, 12 is only an even number.
The only option that has been present alone, is A, and since questions can't have multiple answers, it must therefore be A.
Got it with exactly one minute to spare! Well 0:59 to be precise. So good timesetting, great quiz! Was a bigger challenge (timewise) than expected.
I normally don't post my time (this might be the first time, though maybe it did it once or twice on a quiz that was relevant) but wanted to show that the time set for this quiz was well done, also that it I really needed it all, it got tense near the end. (Did not read the comments, did rewrite the questions on a notepad on the computer, might have spend a lot of time typing and removing brackets and spaces... If I knew an answer was wrong I put it in brackets, but also then wanted to remove the spaces. Like B A(C)(E)D and I was fumbling a lot there. Wanted it to not look messy... rows needed to be aligned etc haha recapitalizing, yup was wasting time :D, but it helped visually, a bit..) I rewrote it btw so there was less scrolling and the questions were a bit more comprehensive and concise.
This comment contains hints. Select to see them (not sure about mobile).
These are not comprehensive.
#5 and #20 can each be answered without looking at any other question
Looking at #10 and #16 will give you the answers to both.
Looking at #6 and #17 will allow you to eliminate answers from each. #2 will clarify them.
Reading #7 will eliminate answers from #8. I am not saying you will be able to answer #7.
Use #3, #4 and #8, together.
Those will also help you answer #12, #15, and #13.
Knowing #13, allows you to eliminate answers from several questions.
#2 is your friend. Consider its implications to will help you eliminate answers on many questions .
You know how many questions are on the quiz, and which ones are vowels or consonants.
I probably will put together a comprehensive solution and post it on reddit.
6) B
7) B
11) D
17) D
and rest 16 options were same.
This is also working fine without violating any other question.
Correct me if I am wrong.
You've made your answer to 17 D, which means 16 and 17 are consecutive questions with identical answers, which violates question 2, which you said only 6 and 7 have consecutive identical answers
I would amend the instructions, though. They say that each question refers to one or more answers on a different question. Question #20 is referred to by other question(s) but does not refer to any other questions.
One is that if I'm not mistaken, the answer to 6 and 17 could be interchangable and:
1. If B is selected for 6, 17 would be D, and then answer to 7 which is open-ended could also be decided as B, then the answer to 11 would be D.
2. If D is selected for 6, then then 17 would be B, then the answer to 7 which is open-ended could be decided as D, then the answer is 11 would be B.
Looks like depending on which answer is selected for 6-17 pair, the final results could change without changing the rest. Looks like the solution is not unique and both these combinations are possible.
Also, the answer to question 9 is really weird. The only way to solve this is based on answer being D, but technically A is also correct, right? I mean both 9 and 10 can have A as the answer!!
If somehow these two are addressed (or someone explains to me where I went wrong) this would be the best test on Jetpunk! :)
Although I found peculiar Q7 and Q8, maybe I have misunderstood something here, but ...
Since the answer for 8 is E shouldn't be all the answers in Q7 correct?
It could be 7-A 8-E (four apart), 7-B 8-E (three apart), 7-C 8-E (two apart), 7-D 8-E (one apart), 7-E 8-E (the same). So the answer for 7 should be all of the above or something.
Why is 7 D then? Only to fit to the other numbers?
Come on.
First attempt: 14/20
Second attempt: 19/20
Thrid attempt: 20/20
Only took it just now, didn't realize how fun of a 40 minutes that would be.
I got 19/20 cause I apparently can't count, but it was amazing, nonetheless!
I'm a little bitter though since I only missed #11 which threw me off when finding #14/#18/#19. I ended up using deductive reasoning to get them right anyhow, but I only got 19/20... I'm not redoing the quiz for getting a score that's 1 higher, though.
Very well done, but I can't nominate it ;)
https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/1306568/the-impossible-logic-quiz
Got it right on my second try, figuring out my solution could not work after 30 min on my first attempt must have been one of the most frustrating moments of my life :-)
"This is a Self-Referential Aptitude Test, developed by James Propp, at UMass-Lowell."
I don't believe the source describes his process, but I wonder if an internet search might uncover it.
I dig it.
I think the logic for #9 on pass three is sus -- "meaning the answer to question 11 couldn't be B". We know it is because we know the answer, but why, at the point, couldn't 11 not being B be valid? Tell me if you disagree.
Question 9 is "The next question with the same answer as this one is question," with option (B) being 11, meaning of course that if the answer is B here then the answer to Question 11 must also be B.
Question 11 is "The number of questions preceding this one with the answer B is," with option (B) being 1.
However, we already know that Question 4's answer is B, so if Question 9 is also B that would mean that there are at least 2 questions prior to 11 with the answer B.
In short: If 9 is B, it leads to a paradox where 11 must be B (because of 9's answer) and can't be B (because it's now incorrect). Thus, the answer to 9 can't be B.
Simply put, just because 9 can't be B that doesn't mean 11 can't be. (and it actually is ;) )
The idea is to read the questions and determine what conclusions you can draw about each one. As you are able to draw conclusions on each question, then conclusions about other questions become apparent (this does not necessarily happen in numerical order).
This is where keeping a separate document can be helpful to keep track of your thinking.
If you are lost, there are hints at the top of the comments to help you. If you are still not having fun, there is a video (linked at top of comments) I put together describing how I solved it.
(side note for QM: I wish there was a way to eliminate/DQ the 50 or 60 quizzes where it's obvious that many people cheat -- e.g. an obscure list of 200, where 15% of takers get 100% correct. Just sayin').
Really tricky quiz, I like the concept
I think I haven't used info contained in question+answer number 7: I only used it as a check, at the end. Is it possible that there was redundant information? (Just a question, not complaining of course!)
Guess I'll have to learn some more English before taking such a quiz again haha
finishing the quiz without outside help really feels good and satisfying, i love this quiz
5, 10, 16 and 20 are all easy, the rest? you're in for a long ride...
Edit: Looking at the spreadsheet, I realized I had it right on there and entered it wrong.
Question 12 can also be solved without needing to answer any questions.
If we look at question 8, there are 5 numbered possibilities for the amount of vowel answers in the quiz; 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Since we know there are 20 questions. We can say that the amount of consonant answers can either be 16, 15, 14, 13 or 12.
We can compare these 5 numbers to the statements in question 12. 16 is only an even number, 15 is an odd number but also divisible by 5, 14 is also only an even number, 13 is an odd number but also a prime number, and finally, 12 is only an even number.
The only option that has been present alone, is A, and since questions can't have multiple answers, it must therefore be A.
and then i got one point
for questions 6 and 17.
how can the answer to 6 be B since it means the answer to 17 is D= the answer to 6 is none of the above
isn’t B one of the above????
or does that not mean what i think it does ?
I normally don't post my time (this might be the first time, though maybe it did it once or twice on a quiz that was relevant) but wanted to show that the time set for this quiz was well done, also that it I really needed it all, it got tense near the end. (Did not read the comments, did rewrite the questions on a notepad on the computer, might have spend a lot of time typing and removing brackets and spaces... If I knew an answer was wrong I put it in brackets, but also then wanted to remove the spaces. Like B A(C)(E)D and I was fumbling a lot there. Wanted it to not look messy... rows needed to be aligned etc haha recapitalizing, yup was wasting time :D, but it helped visually, a bit..) I rewrote it btw so there was less scrolling and the questions were a bit more comprehensive and concise.