Little by little different kinds of eleven plus questions
are creeping into the tests. Of course there will be the purists who wonder at the
value of the new questions but others may welcome the changes.
Could this be a typical question?
The family visited Spain over the holidays. The children
enjoyed the trip. They got a bit tired of their mum and dad exclaiming about
the tiles on the floors, the walls and sides of the buildings. They started whingeing.
One of the parents replied to a rather smart answer by saying: “If you think
you can do better, try to solve problem that man is facing.”
He has a floor that he has to cover with 36 tiles. In a
typically Spanish fashion he only wants to use back and white tiles because he
is trying to prepare the entrance to a shop. He does not want to use straight
rows. This means that he does not want horizontal, vertical or diagonal rows of
three adjacent white tiles.
He now has to order how many black tiles he needs. How does
he solve this problem?
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Of course eleven plus parents can do everything – cook,
clean, earn a living, take their children on holiday and solve rather odd looking
questions. Try this one with your
candidate!
You, of course, know that the answer is fifteen. And you
know how to explain how you arrived at the answer!
