Test Your Brain Power

Highlight below each box to reveal the answer.

Ball Drop

Big Bad Wolf

High Noon

Age Before Beauty

Close Shave

Fill in the missing numbers using the following rules:

1. All the missing numbers are between 0 and 9
2. Each row adds up to the number on the right
3. Each column adds up to the numbers at the bottom
4. Diagonal lines add up to the numbers on the right

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The answer is W.

The letters are the first letter of each day of the week in alphabetical order: Friday, Monday, Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Hink Pinks are riddles whose answers are one syllable words that rhyme.  For instance, an overweight feline is a Fat Cat and a rodent abode is a Mouse House.  Highlight below each riddle for the answer.

50% chuckle

Half Laugh

Overcast 24 hour period

Gray Day

Blue-green moray

Teal Eel

Stepped on cap

Flat Hat

Shoe tying contest

Lace Race

Green stone knife part

Jade Blade

Non-cowardly hair removal

Brave Shave

Happy father

Glad Dad

Fragile harware

Frail Nail

Large branch piece

Big Twig

Fill in the missing numbers.

Rules:

1. Use the numbers 1 through 9
2. Each number is only used once
3. Each row is a math equation
4. Each column is a math equation
5. Remember that multiplication and division are performed before addition and subtraction.

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Five reporters (Alan, Debbie, Holly, Neil, and Zack) are covering the New Year’s Eve celebrations in five cities around the world.  From the clues below, can you determine each reporter’s network, the airline they used, and the city they are covering?

3×5 Grid

1. The five reporters are Alan, the one who flew on United Airlines, the one who is covering the festivities in Madrid, the reporter from NBC, and the reporter from Fox.
2. Holly, who flew on American, is not covering the festivities in Paris or London.
3. Either the reporter from CBS or the reporter from ABC is covering Hong Kong’s celebration.
4. Of the reporter who flew on KLM and the reporter covering Madrid (who is not Neil), one works for CNN and the other is in London.
5. The reporter in New York, who is from NBC, is not Neil and did not fly on Delta.
6. Neither the reporter who flew British Airways nor Zack is in Hong Kong.
7. Alan, who is in London, is not the reporter who flew on Delta.
8. Debbie, who flew either United Airlines or American Airlines, is in Hong Kong.
9. The reporter from Fox is covering the Paris celebration and the reporter from CBS is covering the festivities in London.

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Semantic Memory is the part of your memory that is dedicated to meaning and understanding.  We know that a penguin is a type of bird, a redwood is a type of tree, and a skyscraper is a type of building.  Whenever we communicate we are using our semantic memory.

Much of our semantic memory comes from direct instruction, we learn what a word means, as well as how it is used in a sentence, and that information is committed to semantic memory.  We do not have to have had a direct experience with the thing in question in order to be able to commit the meaning to our semantic memory.  A person who had lived their entire life in the tropics can still know what snow is even though they have never seen it for themselves, thanks to semantic memory.

Semantic memory has a hierarchical structure.  This means that the information is stored in groups and levels.  For instance, knowledge about animals is stored in group with the concept that animals are living things that can move being the top level of information.  All information about animals is then stored in this group.  Subgroups are then used to help store the information in a way that makes it easy to access.  One subgroup may be Mammals while another is Reptiles.  Information about specific animals will be stored in the appropriate subgroup.  Features are stored at the highest level to which they apply.

In the category of Animals, the overall features that they are living, are able to move, and need food is stored at the top level because these features can be applied to all things in the category.  The features “need people” and “don’t need people” cannot be applied to all animals, so these features are applied to the concepts of Tame and Wild.  Each level of information gets more specific.

When we are learning new things, we use the information already in our semantic memory to help us make sense of the new information.  If someone were talking about a cat breed you had never heard about before, you would use the information you know about animals, tame animals, pets, and cats to help you develop your understanding of the new breed.  A new category would then be created for the breed with the features that distinguishes it from the others.

Semantic memory is what makes it possible for people to communicate effectively and to learn new information.  It organizes meanings and concepts in a way that makes it possible to access it when we need it in order to understand what we are being told.

Can you move 3 lines to make 6 squares?

Stumped? Here’s a hint:

Here’s the solution:

5 small squares and 1 large square.

The answer is 7.

The pattern was the number of letters in the spelling of the number.

9 (nine) = 4, 21 (twenty-one) = 9, 22 (twenty-two) = 9, 24 (twenty-four) = 10, 8 (eight) = 5, 7 (seven) = 5, 99 (ninety-nine) = 10,  16 (sixteen) = 7