Never judge a book by its cover. Alternatively, never judge a problem’s difficulty until you try solving it. The ‘three hats’ logic problem might look simple at first glance, but only 36 percent of people actually managed to solve it. The problem is as follows:
"There are three hats, each with an accompanying statement.
Hat One: The cat is in this hat.
Hat Two: The cat is not in this hat.
Hat Three: The cat is not in Hat One.
Exactly one of the statements is true. Exactly one hat contains a cat. Which hat contains the cat?"
If you would want to see the answer (and how the problem can be solved), check out Prevention’s full piece on the problem here.
Image via Prevention
I also arrived at the correct answer, but I got there by assessing the truth of the statements first without guessing where the cat was. Then I doubled back and checked it by assuming the cat's location first just in case my logic was faulty. A fun exercise, but I am still a little surprised that just 36% of people got it. I would have guessed at least 50% would have figured it out.