Question: How would you weigh an elephant without scales?

Alternative Question Phrasing:

Follow-up questions:

How did you come to that conclusion?
How would that method work?
The elephant needs to survive, so cutting it up into small pieces is not possible.

Question Details:

Question Type:

Unconventional

Skills:

Basic – Critical Thinking,Basic – Mathematics,Basic – Science and Logic

Abilities:

Cognitive – Category Flexibility (Mental Flexibility),Cognitive – Deductive Reasoning,Cognitive – Mathematical Reasoning,Cognitive – Originality,Cognitive – Problem Sensitivity (Problem Recognition),Cognitive – Speed of Closure (Thinking Speed),Cognitive – Visualisation

Work Activity (Task):

Information Input – Estimating Characteristics of Objects, Events, or Information,Mental Processes – Making Decisions and Solving Problems,Mental Processes – Processing Information,Mental Processes – Thinking Creatively (Creativity)

Work Style (Person-Job Fit):

Analytical Thinking,Innovation

Question Frequency

Question Difficulty

What to look for in an answer:

You are looking for the correct answer of: putting the elephant on a boat, and then measuring the boat’s water displacement. You are also looking for the creativity and thinking behind working our an answer.

Red Flags to Watch For:

If the interviewee does not attempt the question. If the interviewee continually insists on giving answers that go against the conditions of the question, that is, using a weighing scale of some form. Not having the ‘correct’ answer is not necessarily a red flag.

Sample Answer:

Get boat and mark where its waterline is. Put the elephant on the boat and mark where the new waterline is. Take the elephant off the boat. The boat should now be floating back at where the original waterline was. Either load items of known weight onto the boat until it reaches the waterline when the elephant was on it, or measure the amount of water displaced between the waterlines.

Question Source: Unknown