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puzzle

A friend sent me this picture from a kid's math competition (this is a chinese competition for kindergarten kids so the answer is unlikely to involve fibonacci triangles or anything beyond elementary logic. I do not know the name of the competition and it would probably not ring any bells). We had the same guess for the answer, but it turned out to be wrong.

Our guess was:

12.Because, assuming the problem is additive, the final figure can be constructed as the sum of Fig.1 and Fig. 3

The expected answer is:

13. We can't see the logic behind it. Some whacky patterns like "oh, the value is the sum of the dots minus 1" would work, but nothing suggests that.

Can anybody see the logic behind the expected answer?

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    $\begingroup$ Hmm, seems to me like the first column is 1s, the second is 3s, and the third is 7s, which of course agrees with your answer of 12. Unless this is something related to chinese characters that a clever kindergartner might know, I think a typo is more likely than some alternative. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 9 at 17:50
  • $\begingroup$ It cannot be a simple addition since you do not need "4" (Fig. 2) for that. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 9 at 23:17
  • $\begingroup$ @PM77-1 Given this is for Kindergartners, I'm inclined to think it just wants them to make the connection that the OP did -- that the query pattern is pattern 1 + pattern 3. That there is a "red herring" of sorts is a reasonable means of obfuscation here; it probably struck the author as too easy for the level they were going for. That they made a mistake seems far more parsimonious than that they expected "smart" kindergartners to fit some bizarre model rather than the at-level one. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 10 at 0:53
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    $\begingroup$ Are you sure this is for kindergarten kids? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 10 at 6:29
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    $\begingroup$ @Pranay my friend is a teacher in kindergarten in China, and this is a competition that the kids in her class undertook. These are chinese kindergartners tho (in a fancy shcool). They can already write ~3000 chinese characters and about half of the the class is already pretty much fluent in english, so that's something to keep in mind. They don't have math knowledge beyond the basics of counting tho $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 10 at 14:12

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I don’t know if this is the answer you come up with but imagine it’s a full square and you rotate it to the right for each one. Than count the places of the squares for instance in the figure one you flip you see that the dots are in the one and two add those together and subtract one. Than do the same with the second rotate it to the right you’ll see they are in the first block and fourth add them together and subtract one. Same for the third, you’ll get the fourth block and the seventh add them than subtract one. I would guess you repeat it for the fourth.

Edit: Thirteen is the expected answer you would not be able to add the first and third, see my way on how I did it. You will see that will give you like 17 or something. The first and third figure is an illusion to throw you off to come up with the fourth answer, there is no logic behind it.

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