Here are the questions and answers to the 4th preliminary round of our #PlatinumPass contest. Thanks to the thousands of you who took part in the contest – I hope you enjoyed it! We are now in the process of collating and double-checking the scores, and will be contacting the 10 finalists over the course of the next week. Then, we will announce the date, time and format of the grand final, where two lucky skilful quizzers will win a $30k Platinum Pass to the Bahamas in January. Hope to see you there!
| Q1) In 2017, Liv and Igor took a plane from London to EPT Prague. The flight flew perfectly from West to East, and the plane with travelled the entire way at its maximum possible airspeed. However, there was a constant wind blowing at half the plane’s airspeed in the opposite direction (East to West), for the entire flight. This same wind still blew on their way from Prague back to London a week later.
This year, in 2018 we are expecting no winds at all for the entire route and will be using the same plane. Which year will we have spent less time in the air on this journey? A) 2017, B) Same time in both years, C) It’s impossible to say, D) 2018
Q2) What is the next number in the following series? 56 16 06 68 XX
Q3) You are on dinner break and don’t know what to do with yourself, so you decide to count stairs on an escalator to kill some time. The escalator is moving upwards at a constant speed and you step at a constant rate. When you go up the escalator it takes you 40 steps, and it takes you 60 steps on the way down.
Q4) You are easily distracted and can’t deal with any unnecessary interaction in a live poker hand – receiving change back from the dealer preflop is a huge pain to you. So you try to always have a sufficient amount of chips of any denomination so that you can make a preflop bet without getting any change back. The preflop pots may range between 100 and 10,000 chips by steps of 25. The denominations in the game are 25, 100, 500, 1k, 5k. What is the minimum number of physical chips you need to be able to pay any bet size?
Q5) The shuttle bus at PCA begins its journey with no passengers. At the first stop, the Cove, 12 players get on. At the second stop, half of them leave and 3 more get on the bus. At the next stop, 1/3 leaves and 2 more get on. At the next stop, one quarter leave and no one gets on. At the next stop, 1/6 leave and 5 more get on, and then the bus continues to its final destination. How many people are in the bus when it reaches its final destination? Q6) 100 players each make a statement. 1st player says “At least one of our statements is incorrect” 2nd player says “At least two of our statements are incorrect” 3rd player says “At least three of our statements are incorrect” ………. 100th player says “At least 100 of our statements are incorrect” Having listened to all of them, how many players are making a correct statement?
Q7) Arrange the digits 1-9 into a fraction so that it equals 1/7. You have to use all 9 digits in the fraction exactly once. Examples that are wrong: 527/3689 = 1/7 but doesn’t use all digits 2345/16789 = 0.13987… uses all digits but is not exactly 1/7 Write the numerator and denominator of the fraction separated with a “space” e.g. for 123/456 = 123 456
Answers: Q1) 2018 Q2) 88 (read it upside down) ** note we had a typo in this question in the quiz so did not include it in the final scores Q3) 48 Q4) 14 Q5) 11 (remember there’s a driver!) Q6) 50 Q7) 2394 16758 (there are also other correct solutions – we will use a calculator to ensure that no other correct solutions are overlooked)
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