Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

114 Unit 3 Problem solving: basic skills

If somebody walks from X to Y, in how

many, and what, different orders will they

see the flagpoles? (Exclude places where

one is exactly hidden behind another.)

4    Our local café has an unusual clock which

is upside down. The numbers 3 and 9 are

in their conventional places, but 6 and 12

are interchanged. What time is it when the

hands are positioned as in the clock face

shown?

A 2.45 B 7.15 C 8.45

D 10.15 E 10.45

1    Fred wants to write the letters NSRFC

on his forehead for this afternoon’s

Northampton Saints Rugby Football Club

match. He does it with face paints while

looking in a mirror. What should it look like

in the mirror?

2    Draw a simple picture of your house or

another building with which you are familiar

as seen from above and from the front.

How much can you tell about the side and

back views from your drawings?

3    Outside the Diorama hotel there is a set

of flagpoles, as shown in the drawing. The

flagpoles are all painted different colours

(red, blue, yellow, green, orange, white).

XY

RY O

BG W

When they are seen from position X, they are

seen in the order (from left to right): R B Y O

G W.

End-of-chapter assignments

•   We have seen the importance of spatial

reasoning in many occupations and how

problem-solving questions can test this.

•   The value of practice in solving this type of

question has been emphasised.

•   This chapter introduced questions that are

backward in that the answer must be found

from the options rather than just from the

information and the question.

•   The use of elimination in answering such

questions was illustrated.

Summary