Answer to the IQ Test Question

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/alvinfsc_whats-his-fifth-sons-name-activity-7151709686197538817-8VG3?utm_source=share

Two reasons why this "IQ Test" question cannot be answered:

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Reason 1

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(Evidence):

There is no reason to suppose that Johnny is a male. She could've been a daughter.

(Counter-Argument):

"Johnny" is a typical male name in English. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Johnny is a male and he is his father's fifth son.

(Response):

Suppose that the four names listed really are the names of the father's first four sons. If so, will it be reasonable to presume that the kind of father who names his four sons with names that are highly unconventional, suddenly changes his mind and decides to give his fifth son a "normal" name (That is, a "typical male name" for a boy)? If you really believe that it must be the case, you are the one who is making a wild assumption which deviates from plain common sense.

Also, What evidence do you have to prove that the family is of an English-speaking origin? Since the four listed names are highly "unconventional" for a typical English-speaking culture, it is probable that they are part of a foreign family and the name "Johnny" could've simply been a foreign name whose spelling happened to coincide with that of an English name. And does the question even mention where the family is from? I don't think so.

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Reason 2

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(Evidence):

There is no reason to suppose that the order of the four names in the list really does correspond to the father's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sons on a one-to-one basis. Zaze, Zeze, Zize, and Zoze might as well be the 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd sons, in which case "Zaze" would be the name of the fifth son.

(Counter-Argument):

The list clearly shows the numerical indices: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Although such enumeration does not explicitly state that these numbers indicate the birth order of the father's four sons, it is a widely accepted convention to assume it that way.

(Response):

Speaking of "convention", it is indeed reasonable to say that "1 + 1 = 2" is true without requiring it to explicitly state that the numbers are in base 10. However, smuggling a local convention into a global context is a work of a con artist.

For example, when a document mentions "01/02/03" as a date without specifying its format, should we interpret it as "January 2nd, 2003", "February 1st, 2003", or "February 3rd, 2001"? All these three interpretations are equally feasible, as long as the the culture in which the document was written is unknown. This is the sort of ambiguity I am talking about.

Since the question does not necessarily belong to any regional context, the only valid assumption we can make inside of it is one that is universally applicable. And you know what? It is not "universal" to suppose that the order of sons in a list is necessarily identical to their order of birth, just as it is not "universal" to suppose that the order of three two-digit numbers in a date format refers to "mm/dd/yy".

What if the first element in the list is meant to represent the most recent son? We never know, since the list could've been formulated by someone whose cultural norm is to put the latest son as the first element of the list while still referring to such a son as the "last son" in colloquial language.

Do you think that such a possibility is absurd? If so, what makes you think that "mm/dd/yy" makes any sense, then? Isn't it just a "common sense" that a list of time units should either ascend or descend in scope, without fluctuating weirdly?