#24: Scrambled Pegs
Overview: |
With this activity, participants have an opportunity to unscramble words and determine which does not belong in the list. After this initial challenge, they determine the key words or pegs on which instructional knowledge can be “hung” by unscrambling them. |
Objective: |
• To teach participants how to spot word clues and use them to gain further understanding. |
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• To provide practice in solving verbal problems. |
Supplies: |
• Copies of Worksheet #24-1, one per participant |
Time: |
About 15 minutes |
Advance |
Make copies of Worksheet #24-1. If you can, arrange seating so that pairs or triads can work together. |
Participants/ |
This exercise can be adapted to any number of participants, who will work in pairs or triads. Its flexibility allows it to be used as a session-starter, a session-concluder, or as a session-stimulator. |
Introduction to Concept:
Our intelligence has been tested ever since elementary school days. When we enter the Armed Forces, when we apply to college or graduate school, when we seek employment, we are being asked to solve problems that test not only how quick-witted we are but also how perceptive we are as we seek to make sense out of seemingly nonsensical situations.
Today, I have for you and your partner(s) a set of problems not unlike those that appear on intelligence tests. But don’t be thrown. You will, in fact, enjoy solving these. You’ll begin by unscrambling the words, four of which belong in the same category and one of which does not. If you are the first pair or triad to figure out which word in each combination is the inappropriate word, you just may win a prize today.
Procedure:
1. Distribute Worksheet #24-1. Ask the pairs/triads to inform you as soon as they have finished the entire sheet.
2. Quickly check the answers of the winning team. (The answers are 1–b (Verdi, Jabar, Schubert, Liszt, Mozart), 2–e (Warsaw, Bonn, Paris, Washington, Chrysler), 3–a (calendar, wagon, tractor, cart, carriage), 4–b (pencil, child, stapler, desktop, cabinet), 5–c (toaster, cupboard, leather, refrigerator, pantry), 6–d (tennis, fishing, football, Washington, lacrosse). Award the prizes accordingly.
3. If you are using the exercise as a session-starter, ask the pairs to write down five key words related to their expectations for the training they are about to undertake. Next, they will scramble the letters of the words and pass the puzzles (minus the answers) to another pair (receiving theirs in return), and try to solve them.
If the exercise is used during the session or at the end of it, the key words will be those related to the major concepts/skills they have acquired during the day.
Extending the Activity:
1. Use phrases directly related to the topic of the training program; e.g., time management:
m a n a g e p r i o r i t i e s (a e a m n g i i i e o s t r r p)
l e a r n t o s a y n o (a n e r l o t a s y o n)
k e e p a l o g (e e p k a g o l)
a p p o i n t a t e a m l e a d e r (t p n i o p a a m t a e e e a d l r)
h a v e a t o-d o l i s t (e a v h a o o-d t s i l t)
The fourth entry would not directly relate to the other recommendations for managing time.
2. Encourage participants to submit puzzles to publications that pay to publish them. Many airline magazines, for example, have a page devoted to mental challenges.
Workplace Connections:
1. Work with the editor of the organizational newspaper to include work-related puzzles each month in the firm’s publication.
2. Ask for volunteers to form a special committee that will compile a list of questions from coworkers for which answers are hard to find. On a monthly basis, the committee will review the questions and select one they feel needs to be considered by upper management. The question may be related to an absurdity that causes employees to think, “I just can’t understand why we’re doing it this way.” (Sam Walton understood the power of such frustration, for he encouraged Wal-Mart employees to “Eliminate the dumb.”) Or the question may simply reflect the need for more information or greater clarification.
Questions for Further Consideration:
1. Puzzles develop our concentrative ability; when we are working on them, we are aware of little else. What other kinds of exercises can develop this ability?
2. What process did you use to figure out these answers? How does your method compare to the method used by the most successful puzzle-solver here?
Directions: Unscramble the letters to find the words. Then circle the word that does not belong in the grouping.
1. a) R D V E I
b) R B J A A
c) T S R H C B E U
d) Z S L T I
e) Z T O R A M
2. a) W W A A S R
b) N N B O
c) S R A P I
d) W N O H T G N A S I
e) L S H R C Y E R
3. a) A A E R D N C L
b) A N G W O
c) R R T C A O T
d) R A C T
e) R R G I A A C E
4. a) L N E I C P
b) L I D H C
c) R P L T S E A
d) P S K D T O E
e) T B N I E A C
5. a) T T E A O S R
b) D R B P C O U A
c) T E E L A H R
d) R R R R E E F G T O A I
e) Y T R P N A
6. a) N N T S I E
b) G H S N F I I
c) O O L L T A F B
d) G A T H W O N N I S