When I was in third grade, my teacher played a simple game with the class one day. It involved guessing a number. The rules were that she could not tell us the number she had picked, but she could verify if it was within a certain range. For example, if a person asked if the number was under 500, she could confirm this fact but not divulge anything else. Eventually, the right number would be revealed by trial and error.
The game got to a point where the number was determined to be between 120 and 130. I raised my hand at this point and ventured a guess of 129. There was a look of surprise on her face, and she revealed that the number she had written down was indeed 129. “You got it on the first try,” she said.
One may come to the conclusion that my guess was of pure chance. After all, the odds of guessing the right one on the first try are not terribly low. I did, however, have distinct reasons for choosing 129 that were not random.
To understand my methods, one must first analyze the mindset of my teacher as I did. I assumed from the beginning of the game that my teacher had a condescending viewpoint of children. To clarify, she probably believed that the knowledge of her students was limited. Whether or not she was correct is immaterial. What matters is that this is likely the general perspective of all teachers; it is not wrong to do this, as teachers must have confidence in themselves in being the administrators of their classrooms.
Considering this fact, I assumed that she would not pick what I refer to as typical digits. For example, children often favor certain numbers. The most obvious choice between 120 and 130 would be 125. 125 is in the middle of the range and also has the number 5 in it. 125 acts as a halfway point and the anchor between 120 and 130 that provides stability in a child's mind.
Students are also taught to remember multiples of 10. For example, 10, 20, 30 and so forth. Multiples of 10 are the easiest to remember and the first answers to be considered in a youth's brain. Taking this into account, I eliminated 120, 125, and 130 as answers.
Despite these omissions, there are a still quite a few possibilities. I, however, ruled out all even numbers because even numbers are “clean” in a particular sense. To state the obvious, they are never uneven. Multiplying even numbers and adding even numbers will always result in even numbers, which generates a “clean” quality to a young student. Because even numbers are easier to manipulate than odd ones in terms of calculation, students are attracted to these numbers. By this belief, 122, 124, 126, and 128 must have a low probability of being the right numbers.
The remaining numbers were 123, 127, and 129. From this cadre, my chances of estimating the right one increased but were not assured; if I guessed randomly at this point, I would have only a 33% chance of guessing correctly.
Further deliberation was needed. My final decision can be understood by observing the nature of 129. As mentioned before, a child regards counting numbers in either an even form (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) or as a multiple of 10 (10, 20, 30, 40, etc.) as standard practice. The realm of odd numbers is detestable to a child that is taught order and conformity. Odd numbers flirt with equilibrium but never attain it.
9 is the least likable because it is the closest to being both an even number and a multiple of 10; 3 and 7 are close to being even numbers but are never capable of being a number as strong as a multiple of 10. Out of these, I believed the teacher would pick 129 because she would think that 9 is the least favorable number for children. Therefore, I eliminated the two other answers, 123 and 127.
The idea that I would consider all these possibilities in a small timeframe, at a young age, and with a bizarre logic is laughable to most people and likely to the people reading this article, who probably do not think I am telling the truth. I stand by my testimony though and do not see any advantage to lying about such an experience.
*It should be noted that the point of this writing is not to prepare the reader for childish guessing games. It is to illustrate the fact that you can gain an advantage in predicting other people's actions by factoring in their motives, views, attitudes, tendencies, etc.*
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