How religious are you? To find out, answer these questions:
1) Bill can drink a barrel of beer in six days. Bert can drink a barrel of beer in 12 days (assume they’re both really going for it). How long would it take them to drink a barrel together?
2) When it comes to maths, Jane is pretty average. In fact, on a recent test, her mark was both the 15th highest and the 15th lowest in the class. How many students are there in the class?
3) Ernie is a keen eBayer. He buys a rare comic for £60, sells it for £70, buys it back again for £80, then finally sells it for £90. What was his final profit?
Of course your answers (see below) can’t directly tell us anything about your own religious beliefs. But a recent study conducted in Canada found that atheists scored around 19% higher on such tests than people who identified as affiliated to a religion. The researchers also combined the findings of previous studies on this topic (more than 15,000 participants) into a meta-analysis, finding a significant, though modest, negative relationship between test performance and religious belief (0.18 on a scale from 0 to 1). These findings, on their own, don’t necessarily suggest that religious people are less intelligent, but that they tend to have a thinking style that is more intuitive than analytical.
Answers 4 days, 29 students, £20
A fully referenced version of this article is available at benambridge.com. Order Psy-Q by Ben Ambridge (Profile Books, £8.99) for £6.99 at bookshop.theguardian.com
