Intelligence Test: Picture Completion

“I am going to show you a picture that has something wrong with it. Here is the first card. Can you tell me what is wrong with this picture?”

“The man is using a comb, but he has no hair.”

“Here’s another picture. Can you tell me what’s funny about this picture? What’s silly about it?”

I look at the picture. There is too much to take in. It’s not like the first picture, which was simple; this one is busy. Look at the picture. She’s timing you. The sand is running out. Focus. Girl. Tree. Grass. Okay, now I can see the picture. This is a trick question because there are lots of things wrong. For instance, it’s windy and the girl isn’t wearing a warm enough jacket. Two, the girl is too young to be out without a grown-up. Three, the girl should have worn darker socks to match her outfit. She doesn’t look neat and put-together. Four, the wind is going in the opposite direction from the way her hair is blowing; and five, the shadow on the ground looks wrong.

Dr. Rivka shifts.

“Just one funny thing?” I ask.

“Just one.”

“Could it be the trees?” I ask. “That they’re blowing a different way from her hair? Maybe that’s it?”

I look at the girl in the picture again and then over to the doctor.

“Is that a question, or your answer?”

“It’s a question,” I say, hoping she’ll just say I’m right so I can say the answer and know I’m right.

“I need just an answer,” she says.

I do not want to be wrong. What if she yells at me? I feel myself separate from my body so that it can answer her without me, in case I’m wrong.

“It’s the trees?” I say. “That they’re blowing a different way from her hair?”

“What about this picture, Amanda? Can you tell me what’s foolish about it, what’s silly?”

She’s not saying whether I’m right or wrong. Was it her jacket, or that she was outside without a grown-up? I stare at the card. I stare at the dog. I stare at the man. I will never know anything.

The man has footprints and the dog doesn’t, but maybe the dog is walking on a sidewalk and not in the snow. It’s hard to tell. Looking closer, it seems the man isn’t wearing shoes, and walking through the snow barefoot is funny, and wrong, as well as foolish and silly. But there’s the matter of the dog not being on a leash. Also, the dog isn’t wearing a collar. The man has his hands in fists, so he must be cold, which means he forgot his gloves. Not to mention the world is missing.

The sand timer is draining. What if the card is supposed to be in color and my answer is about the footprints? What if the man isn’t dressed warmly and my answer is that the card is black and white? What if the dog is supposed to be a cat, the man a woman, the dog a child, the man a dog? What if I can’t see the exact same things she sees?

“Don’t overthink it, Amanda. Just say the first thing that comes to your mind.”

“Is it that the dog has no footprints but the man does?” I ask.

I wait for her to say, “Very good,” or “Right on!” or even “Good job, kiddo!” but she just puts another card in front of me.

“Amanda, there is something missing from the pictures I am going to show you. You have to tell me what is missing. Here is the first picture. Can you tell me what is missing?”

I sigh. “Is it the dad’s glasses? The nose part? Is that right?”

“What about this picture?”

I will never know whether or not I’m ever right.

“What’s missing? Amanda?”

“The baby.”

“Anything else?”

“The mom.”