Words on the Board
A teacher writes six words on a board: “cat dog has max dim tag.” She gives three students, Albert, Bernard and Cheryl each a piece of paper with one letter from one of the words. Then she asks, “Albert, do you know the word?” Albert immediately replies yes. She asks, “Bernard, do you know the word?” He thinks for a moment and replies yes. Then she asks Cheryl the same question. She thinks and then replies yes. What is the word?
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1 solution
The answer is dog. Albert knows right away because he has one of the unique letters that only appear once in all the words: c o h s x i. So, we know the word is not “tag.” All of these unique letters appear in different words, except for “h” and “s” in “has,” and Bernard can figure out what the word is from the unique letters that are left: t, g, h, s. This eliminates “max” and “dim.” Cheryl can then narrow it down the same way. Because there is only one unique letter left, the letter “d,” the word must be “dog.”