Below is a classic brain teaser that plays some of the same tricks that one sees on standardized tests, especially the GMAT and GRE.
A boy is walking down the road with a doctor. While the boy is the doctor’s son, the doctor isn’t the boy’s father. Then who is the doctor?
Answer:
The doctor is the boy’s mother! This is a clever question that plays some of the same kind of tricks played by the GMAT and GRE. First, generally, it plays on our tendency to make unwarranted assumptions. More specifically, it plays on the learned associations that we may have. For example, when asked to picture a doctor, many people will automatically picture a man. It’s also a deliberate choice to have the child be a son and not a daughter. Somehow having the child be a son makes it more likely that we will picture a father and not a mother. This type of “word association” (son and father) happens on the GRE as is described in our article on Why Using Your Ear on Verbal Questions Is a Bad Idea!