Suggestion: ask questions which are easy to execute for persons with evolved physical-world intuitions, but hard[er] to calculate otherwise. For example:
Suppose I have a yardstick which was blank on one side and marked in inches on the other. First, I take an unopened 12-oz beverage can and lay it lengthwise on one end of the yardstick so that half the height of the can is touching the yardstick and half is not, and duct-tape it to the yardstick in that position. Second, I take one-liter plastic water bottle, filled with water, and duct-tape it to the other end in a similar sort of position. If I lay a deck of playing cards in the middle of the open floor and place the yardstick so that the 18-inch mark is centered on top of the deck of cards, when I let go, what will happen?
Familiarity with imperial units is hardly something I would call an evolved physical-world intuition...
Were I using that test case, I would be prepared with statements like “A fluid ounce is just under 30 cubic centimeters” and “A yardstick is three feet long, and each foot is twelve inches” if necessary. Likewise “A liter is slightly more than one quarter of a gallon”.
But Stuart_Armstrong was right—it’s much too complicated an example.
Familiarity with imperial units is hardly something I would call an evolved physical-world intuition...
Were I using that test case, I would be prepared with statements like “A fluid ounce is just under 30 cubic centimeters” and “A yardstick is three feet long, and each foot is twelve inches” if necessary. Likewise “A liter is slightly more than one quarter of a gallon”.
But Stuart_Armstrong was right—it’s much too complicated an example.