The ball and bat one stumped me at first -- a lot of the difficulty of those questions is getting locked in on the framing of the elements instead of breaking it down.

Brain the size of a planet, and I'm trying to get a job as a cashier. Maybe I'd be better off parking cars, at least it would be outdoor work....

For the widget one, I pictured five machines making five widgets simultaneously. So, each machine makes one widget, and that takes five minutes. So if X machines make X widgets, it doesn't matter what X is, as each machine is still making one widget, so the answer is still five minutes.

Of course, part of my brain is all, "It's a trick question! The 'obvious' answer is wrong!" so I approached the problem all suspicious-like....

The ball and bat one stumped me at first

Yeah, for that one I figured out the "obvious" answer, determined that was not correct, and tweaked the answer in my brain until it worked.

Of course, you could also use algebra....

I totally used algebra.

I totally used algebra.

In retrospect, I should have tried that first.

It's my first instinct. Which is weird but it generally works, so I guess that's okay.

I used pictures. I imagined bar charts with a dollar difference in the height of the two bars, and for some reason the answer actually came out in numbers. Which makes no sense.

Of course, part of my brain is all, "It's a trick question! The 'obvious' answer is wrong!" so I approached the problem all suspicious-like....

I decided that each machine would make one widget per minute...and just stop, I guess. Which would explain why 100 machines taking 100 minutes to make 100 widgets is dumb. I forgot to take into account that a machine can make more than one widget.

Yeah, for that one I figured out the "obvious" answer, determined that was not correct, and tweaked the answer in my brain until it worked.

That's what I did too.

The pond one I was actually gonna do math for and stuff before I said, "Self, you have a migraine. Stop trying to be smart right now and just look at the spoilered answers already."

I was going to do math and stuff, but when I started thinking about what was actually going on in the problem in order to come up with a method, I realized what the answer was.

How was Mt. Diablo, megan?

Tiring. I've been working so much that I haven't been doing hills as much as I should. We didn't hike much distance, but did do 800 ft of elevation very quickly. But the view from the summit was worth it.

It was a gorgeous day, if a bit hazy. Apparently, on a clear day the view from the top is second only to Kilimanjaro in visible land area and you can see Half Dome. I'll have to go back after a storm.

I approached those three questions like the English Major I am (a close reading to determine what they are really asking)and got all three right. No algebra for me!