It must have stuck with me, because when I interview people, I give them "The Bucket Test". I borrowed it from Die Hard 3. It has 2 correct answers, so it's interesting to see if people can get them both. I have even taken to giving homework of the second answer if an interviewee does well enough with the first answer.
As I phrase it, the question goes like this:
"I'm going to give you two buckets, a three gallon bucket and a five gallon bucket. They are both empty. You've got all the water you can use. I want you to give me back precisely four gallons."
Herself is by now very tired of the way I say "precisely" whenever this gets discussed at home.
Most of my daughters' boyfriends have had to take the bucket test. As with the job interviews, mostly I'm just watching to see how folks react to a difficult question.
Before tonight, I had last looked up this problem on the internet a few years ago, and didn't really find anything. By now, like everything else, it's on Answers.COM. No clicking that link if you ever want to work for me (or date my daughters).
Once you've figured out (or cheated using the link above) the first way, just start again, filling the other bucket first. The second answer needs to take the same number of steps as the first answer. Let me know if you need some help.
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