Self-Referential Aptitude Test

Originally by Jim Propp; see the main SRAT page. Adapted as an HTML form by Eddy: each question gets a mutually-exclusive family of radio buttons, one per answer; each answer gets a check-box alongside its radio button. Without JavaSpit, the check-boxes can serve as some space to note which answers can't be right, which is all the help you should need in working out the right answer. (If your browser supports the CSS3 :checked pseudo-class, selecting a check-box should hide its radio button.)

If you have JavaSpit enabled: selecting a checkbox will disable (and uncheck) the accompanying radio button; and there will be some check-boxes at page's end to turn on some extra assistance. One tells you how many of each answer you have given or could give (to save you assorted counting); the other tells you whether your existing answers contradict or agree with your selection of a radio button to indicate an answer to a question – pink says your answer contradicts some other, white says your answer agrees with the rest of the form and greys say there's some doubt. Note that the test result is only valid at the time it's done; no attempt is made to keep it up to date as you change answers to other questions (aside from #20). Since the checking script merely encodes the questions, it has no knowledge on #20, so selecting any answer to #20 provokes a check across all questions and uses its result to decide #20's. You can, thus, get an all white answer without actually being right (see Jim's comments on #20): in fact, there are four consistent sets of answers. They only differ in #14 and the last three questions, so it is fairly easy to work the others out, given any one of them.

Jim said:

The solution to the following puzzle is unique; in some cases the knowledge that the solution is unique may actually give you a short-cut to finding the answer to a particular question, but it's possible to find the unique solution even without making use of the fact that the solution is unique. (Thanks to Andy Latto for bringing this subtlety to my attention.)

I should mention that if you don't agree with me about the answer to #20, you will get a different solution to the puzzle than the one I had in mind. But I should also mention that if you don't agree with me about the answer to #20, you are just plain wrong.  :-)

You may now begin work.

  1. The first question whose answer is B is question
    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4
    5. 5
  2. The only two consecutive questions with identical answers are questions
    1. 6 and 7
    2. 7 and 8
    3. 8 and 9
    4. 9 and 10
    5. 10 and 11
  3. The number of questions with the answer E is
    1. 0
    2. 1
    3. 2
    4. 3
    5. 4
  4. The number of questions with the answer A is
    1. 4
    2. 5
    3. 6
    4. 7
    5. 8
  5. The answer to this question is the same as the answer to question
    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4
    5. 5
  6. The answer to question 17 is
    1. C
    2. D
    3. E
    4. none of the above
    5. all of the above
  7. Alphabetically, the answer to this question and the answer to the following question are
    1. 4 apart
    2. 3 apart
    3. 2 apart
    4. 1 apart
    5. the same
  8. The number of questions whose answers are vowels is
    1. 4
    2. 5
    3. 6
    4. 7
    5. 8
  9. The next question with the same answer as this one is question
    1. 10
    2. 11
    3. 12
    4. 13
    5. 14
  10. The answer to question 16 is
    1. D
    2. A
    3. E
    4. B
    5. C
  11. The number of questions preceding this one with the answer B is
    1. 0
    2. 1
    3. 2
    4. 3
    5. 4
  12. The number of questions whose answer is a consonant is
    1. an even number
    2. an odd number
    3. a perfect square
    4. a prime
    5. divisible by 5
  13. The only odd-numbered problem with answer A is
    1. 9
    2. 11
    3. 13
    4. 15
    5. 17
  14. The number of questions with answer D is
    1. 6
    2. 7
    3. 8
    4. 9
    5. 10
  15. The answer to question 12 is
    1. A
    2. B
    3. C
    4. D
    5. E
  16. The answer to question 10 is
    1. D
    2. C
    3. B
    4. A
    5. E
  17. The answer to question 6 is
    1. C
    2. D
    3. E
    4. none of the above
    5. all of the above
  18. The number of questions with answer A equals the number of questions with answer
    1. B
    2. C
    3. D
    4. E
    5. none of the above
  19. The answer to this question is:
    1. A
    2. B
    3. C
    4. D
    5. E
  20. Standardized test is to intelligence as barometer is to
    1. temperature (only)
    2. wind-velocity (only)
    3. latitude (only)
    4. longitude (only)
    5. temperature, wind-velocity, latitude, and longitude

Valid CSSValid HTML 4.01 Originally by Jim Propp; see the main SRAT page. Adapted as an HTML form by Eddy with help from Hixie.