Strange truths and cunning lies

Here’s a little game I’ve been using to pass the time. I have a list of wacky sounding facts that are either true or false. Here’s a couple of my favourites, only four of which are true. See how you go:

A) The shortest commercial flight in the world lasts just 57 seconds.

B) There is twice as much fresh water in Brazil than in the rest of the world combined

C) The gold in Tutankhamun’s tomb had been stolen from the tombs of other pharaohs

D) The toy Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

E) Cleopatra only ate the parts of animals that she believed could regrow. Her diet consisted of lizard tales, crocodile liver, and the cartilage from feathers

F) Cotton candy was invented by a dentist.

G) In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal to plant a field in August

H) Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ is a sequel. The first book is lost forever

I) China used more cement in three years — between 2011 and 2013 — than the US did in the entire 20th century.

All done? Finished it?

I’m sure you’re wondering where the answers are. Well I didn’t want to make it too obvious to find them. I thought you might accidentally glance over them so I cleverly (I’m hoping cleverly) hid them in the text. That’s right, the big twist is that you’ve actually already been given the answers. Just in case you want to try and figure out how I’ll only reveal where they are in the next paragraph.

There’s three ways you can find out the answers based solely on what you’ve already read. (Look, these hyperlinks didn't used to be obvious  before putting them on this website) The capital letters of those rhetorical questions asking if you were finished actually correspond with the true statements. I also put some hyperlinks in the first sentence of this paragraph, so if you click the letter “answers” you’ll get the source for statement A. Also, the true statements are the only ones with full stops at the end.

I like this game cause it’s helped me think a little bit more about discerning what I read and critically assessing it. This is an important thing to do in the age of information. I've found that sometimes it’s the most unbelievable things that end up being true.