Professionals miss simple solutions

One day, while pointlessly browsing on the Internet, I came upon a short quiz consisting of just four questions.  Anderson Consulting Worldwide (ACW), which offered the quiz, claimed that the quiz would reveal whether a person was qualified to be a professional or not.  The questions were very simple, but all my answers went wrong.

The first question was: "How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?"  I wouldn't try to do anything so stupid, I thought.  Where was the need in any case?  Even if there was need…  At last, I thought of two complicated means of putting a giraffe into a fridge.  When I checked my answer with the correct one given by ACW, I felt foolish.  The correct answer was: "Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door."  So simple! 

Now the second question: "How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?"  Simple, I thought: open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator.  No, wrong.  The correct answer was: "Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant, and close the door."  How stupid of me, I thought, and decided to be careful in answering the next question. 

The next question was: "The Lion King is hosting an Animal Conference.  All the animals except one attend.  Which animal does not attend?"   How the deuce was I to know?  I didn't answer the question and checked the answer key.  The correct answer was: "The animal that doesn't attend the conference is, of course, the elephant.  It cannot attend because it is in the refrigerator.  You just put him in there.  Remember?"  Yes, yes, yes.

Now the last question: "You have to cross a river inhabited by crocodiles.  How will you manage it?"  How would I manage it?  Would I kill all the crocodiles?  Would I distract their attention?  But how?  I checked the answer key.  The correct answer was: "You swim across.  All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting."  I should have learnt from my earlier mistake and got this question right, but I didn't.

But I drew consolation from the fact that whether, according to this quiz, I was qualified to be a professional or not, my thinking was similar to that of a large number of professionals.  Around 90 per cent of the professionals that ACW tested got all questions wrong!  But many boys and girls at the primary level got several correct answers. 

What is ACW's conclusion from this test?  It claims that the test conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old!