Brain Out Level 2

Overview

This counting level asks how many ducks are on the screen. A flock of yellow birds runs in a loose diagonal from the upper-left edge down to the large bird at the lower right, and four answer buttons sit below them marked 8, 9, 10, and 11. The trap is that not every yellow figure in the group is a duck: one chick is tucked into the lineup and looks close enough to a duckling to be counted by a hurried glance. The accepted total is 9 ducks, which means you have to separate the real ducklings from the lookalike before choosing a button.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Estimated moves: 1

Step-by-Step Solution

1. Pause before touching any answer button and study the flock as a whole. The birds are drawn at different sizes and angles, so a quick sweep tends to either miss a small one or count an extra figure that does not belong.
2. Start from the smallest bird at the upper-left edge and move down the diagonal one figure at a time, giving each one a quick check of its beak, body shape, and legs before moving to the next.
3. Watch for the single chick mixed into the group. It shares the yellow coloring of the ducklings, but its beak and body proportions are those of a chick rather than a duck, and it sits slightly differently on its legs from the birds beside it.
4. Keep a running tally of only the ducklings. Every time you confirm a figure has the duck shape, add one; when you reach the chick, leave it out of the tally instead of including it just because it is yellow.
5. When your tally settles on 9, tap the button labeled 9 among the four choices. The board accepts the count and brings up the success panel.
6. If the number you first counted lands on 10 or 11, go back through the lineup rather than picking the nearest button. An overcount almost always means the chick was included, and removing that one figure brings the total back to 9.

The reason this sequence works is that the prompt asks specifically for ducks, not for every bird on screen. The chick is a deliberate decoy placed where it blends into the flock, so the solution is a filtering exercise: identify which figures match the requested category and ignore the rest. Rushing makes the decoy invisible, which is why counting slowly and checking each figure's shape matters more than speed here.

Strategy & Reasoning

Brain Out counting levels almost always hide one extra object that resembles the requested target. The four consecutive answer choices, 8 through 11, are arranged so that both undercounting and overcounting land on a plausible button, which removes the usual safety net of eliminating extremes. The intended reading is that the scene contains ten or so yellow figures but only nine true ducks, with the chick acting as the one excluded case.

Tapping 10 or 11 fails because those numbers treat the chick as a duck. Tapping 8 fails because that skips a real duckling along the line. The puzzle does not reward a clever gesture or a hidden object; it rewards careful observation of details that separate the chick from the ducklings. Once you accept that the flock is mixed, the correct strategy is to inspect beaks and body shapes instead of relying on color alone.

Tips & Common Mistakes

• Do not count every yellow bird you see. One chick is hidden among the ducklings, and including it pushes the answer up to 10 or 11, both of which are rejected.
• Do not rush the count just because the figures are small. Work down the diagonal one by one, and write off any figure whose beak or proportions do not match a duckling.
• If your tally comes out to 10, look for the chick again before trying another button. The most common miss is treating that single lookalike as a duck, and removing it gives the accepted total of 9.