--- title: Olympiad: everyday reasoning ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: everyday reasoning ★★★», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Everyday puzzles hide in socks, fences, queues and stairs. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / Olympiad: everyday reasoning ★★★ # Olympiad: everyday reasoning ★★★ Lesson 194 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/0/) — Everyday puzzles hide in socks, fences, queues and stairs. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/1/) — The quick answer is usually the trap; the right one comes from picturing the real thing, step by step. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/2/) — Counting things and counting the gaps between them are different: a 10-metre fence with a post every 2 metres has 5 gaps but 6 posts, and cutting a log into 4 pieces takes only 3 cuts. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/3/) — Some puzzles turn on the worst case. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/4/) — Grabbing socks in the dark from a drawer of red, blue and black ones, 3 socks could all be different colours, but the 4th must match one of them. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/5/) — Some puzzles are best solved backwards: if lily pads double every day and cover the pond on day 30, then the day before, day 29, they covered half of it. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/6/) — Real talk adds a last trap. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/7/) — "The queue was a mile long" and "I'm starving" are hyperbole, not numbers; "it's just a scratch" may hide a real injury, and then the wise move is to check and tell an adult. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/8/) — In the dark, from a drawer of red, blue and black socks, taking 4 socks is enough to be sure of a matching pair; 3 could all be different. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/9/) — A 10-metre fence with a post every 2 metres, counting both ends, needs 6 posts. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/10/) — Cutting a log into 4 pieces takes 3 cuts, so at 2 minutes a cut it takes 6 minutes. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/11/) — Going from floor 1 to floor 3 is 2 flights of stairs; at 15 seconds a flight, floor 1 to floor 6 is 5 flights, 75 seconds. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/12/) — A snail in a 10-metre well that climbs 3 metres each day and slips back 2 metres each night gets out on day 8, because on the last day it doesn't slip back. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/13/) — Lily pads that double every day and cover a pond on day 30 covered half of it on day 29. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/14/) — If you are 5th from the front and 5th from the back of a queue, the queue has 9 people, because you are counted in both. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/15/) — When 4 friends each shake hands once with each other, there are 6 handshakes. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/16/) — If Ella has 3 brothers and each brother has 1 sister, that sister is Ella, so there are 4 children. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/17/) — Among 9 coins with one heavier fake, a balance finds the fake in 2 weighings: weigh 3 against 3, then 1 against 1 from the heavier three, or from the three left out if it balances. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/18/) — Trains every 20 minutes from 7:10 leave at 7:30, 7:50, 8:10 and 8:30, so someone arriving at 8:15 has missed one by 5 minutes and waits 15. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/194-olympiad-everyday-reasoning/19/) — "It's just a scratch" about a cut that won't stop bleeding is downplaying a real injury; it needs pressure and an adult. - ← previous: [Olympiad: logic traps and if-then ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/193-olympiad-logic-traps-and-if-then/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)