Demonstrating the importance of observation, the National Geographic puzzle challenges adults but not children.
The question may seem to be trivial, but it is not. And what is even more surprising: Children are better at solving it than adults. In particular, the Daily Mail reports that 80% of the children questioned answered correctly. Adults, on the other hand, answered some correctly and some incorrectly, without looking at the picture carefully and relying directly on luck.
Launched by National Geographic several years ago, the puzzle has become a classic in logic quizzes. Give it a try!
The puzzle
In the video released by National Geographic for an episode of Brain Games, there is a yellow bus with identical windows at either end – giving no clue as to which is the front or back of the bus.
The question put to the adults and the children was: is the bus going to the left or to the right?
The National Geographic video
The correct answer
The correct answer is that the bus is travelling to the left.
Why? The key to solving the puzzle is the fact that you can’t see the passenger doors. This means they must be on the other side of the bus, and if you’re in Italy where people drive on the right side of the road this means the bus is going left.
