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Brain exercise: brain teaser

Quick! Count the number of times that the letter F appears in the following sentence: “Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years”. 

How many did you find? Check the solution and explanation.

Categories: Brain Teasers, Professional Development, Uncategorized

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45 Responses

  1. Cynthia says:

    There are 6

  2. Shahzad says:

    ha, this test will fail on South Asians where ‘of’ is usually pronounced as ‘off’ and not ‘ov’

  3. Alvaro says:

    Hello Shahzad, you’re right. Feel free to propose other teasers you have seen may work better with South Asians!

  4. Liss says:

    I counted 7.

  5. KAREN says:

    I FOUND 7

  6. Sheri says:

    Take you time.. there are 6.

  7. me says:

    6 f’s

  8. miss says:

    i found 6 easily

  9. zeda says:

    i found six!

  10. Shenaye says:

    There are 9 f’s

  11. liam says:

    there are defin. 6 f’s in the sentence. it’s the f’s in the ‘of’ we humans find it hard to count.

  12. kylie dimock says:

    too many blonds are reading this

  13. terrell owens says:

    Hey its terrell owens and i counted 6

  14. Diana says:

    I’m blond & I counted 6. If you count the preceding sentence there are 9.

  15. Aaron says:

    Yeah I found 6 quite easily. How did you guys get 7, I’m curious?

  16. Sasa bacic says:

    There Are 6! Greetings from Great Serbia

  17. whitne says:

    I wonder if it’s also true that we tend to ignore little words without much meaning or emotional content.

  18. Alvaro says:

    There are 6.

    Whitne: good point. You can try this other exercise to see how we tend to ignore little objects without much meaning…

    Can you, from memory, draw a penny (or any other small coin) and all its elements? Try to do so…and then compare with a real one.

  19. Adrian says:

    I counted 1 (one).
    I reckon if we need to count the “following” sentence then the sentence to be counted is [How many did you find?] = 1

  20. Alvaro says:

    Hello Adrian, very good to think out of the box, but that would be the “following paragraph”, wouldn’t it?

    A very interesting cognitive skill is called “theory of mind”, in which one can ascertain the intentions of other person. Which “sentence” do you think we mean?

  21. Adrian says:

    Hi Alvaro, thanx for the reply. I’m a bit rough on grammar but I thought anything after the colon would be considered the ’same’ sentence, not the ‘following’ sentence. Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this one. Cheers.

  22. Alvaro says:

    Helo Adrian-well, thinking hard is more than welcome in this blog :-)

  23. dcghk says:

    There are 6 as it clearly states “..in the FOLLOWING sentence..”

  24. mariah says:

    i found four f’s. i promise you there are four f’s.

  25. Emily says:

    6

  26. valesh says:

    there is actually only one ‘F’
    rest five are’f’s
    see in the question he aasked ‘F’s but not ‘f’s

  27. The person who makes me has no need for me The person who buys me doesn’t use me The person who is using me doesn’t know What am I?

  28. Tasha says:

    six. the reason people were meant to count less is because our minds aren’t supposed to translate the F’s in the word OF

  29. Nicky says:

    I found 6 first try and actually when I initially started counting I glossed over the of but then stopped, went back and included the of’s in the count THEN read the explanation and had a chuckle. Quite the little mental trick!

  30. NATACHA says:

    NEED TO PRACTICE AND GET SHARPER.

  31. Joan says:

    six it is

  32. Kiara says:

    i counted six

  33. Craig says:

    It is never good to complicate a simple thing. How about we change the intro to say,… “read aloud, the words you see below.”
    “Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years”… Then ask how many times the letter after the letter E in the english alphabet is used in what you just said?

  34. Rontre says:

    Hello from the Bahamas.
    There are 6 f’s in the sentence. It’s basically here to say that the human brain doesn’t take in the word “of” as a word with f because it is said as “ov”.

  35. rach says:

    i found 4

  36. rach says:

    no wait i found 8

  37. ali says:

    6. There are only 6. Show me the others.

  38. Olivia says:

    At fist I counted 3, not even acknologing the F’s in the words like “of”. I then recounted it, and I counted 6.

  39. Dimwit says:

    I found 16

  40. kex says:

    Whats the answer to the riddle. tasha

  41. Dickface says:

    i cant count :(

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