Chinese Exams

crocodiles shed tears when they encounter food?
(3) Why did Britain discontinue weather reports during the WWII?
(4) Why is the air especially fresh after a summer thunderstorm?
(5) Why can’t sea water be consumed?
(6) Fill in the next number in the sequence: 2, 3, 13, 175, ?
(7) From 12:00 to 13:00, how many times are the hour hand and the minute hand at 90 degrees to each other?
(8) 50 people are doing lab exercises (in physics and chemistry). 40 people did the physics exercise right, 41 people did the chemistry exercise right and 4 people got both wrong. How many people got both right?
(9) Color blindness is a hereditary disease. But more men are observed to be color-blind than women. Why?
(10) To produce a certain decorative necklace, you need 25 pearls, 3 strings, one zipper and ten minutes of labor. You now have 4,880 pearls, 586 strings, 200 zippers and four workers. How many necklaces can you produce in 8 hours?

A strange mixture of general knowledge, logic and maths. I can’t resist questions like (8) – it takes me a few moments while my mind goes into a sort of spin – how on earth do I do that? – before I think, right, slow down, think logically – and then it comes (quite) easily and I think how stupid not to have set about it like that from the start. The number sequence, (6), I thought I had, but my sequence goes 2,3,13,178. A misprint?

Haven’t a clue about the crocodile. Connected to the gastric juices? [update: from a quick google around, the consensus appears to be that this is a myth]

That was in the morning. In the afternoon candidates had to write an essay entitled: “How does our government raise its ability to respond to suddenly happening public events.” To which the answers, With great difficulty, or, By pouring troops in and making sure the press only print what we want them to print, would presumably not be appreciated. Still, it’s an improvement on the correct answer for the previous generation: “”We firmly uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made and we unswervingly adhere to whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave.”