My friend arrived at my home wet and hungry. On the way to my house her windshield wipers stopped working which was problematic since it was raining. She couldn't make out which lane she was in but she could distinguish the wiggly globs of red and green as traffic lights. She wanted to stop and get a bagel on the way but there was nowhere to park in the parking lot of the bagel store. Well there were available spaces but her car no longer does that thing, the thing where you go backwards, you know, 'reverse,' so you have to really plan out your parking strategy.

Intrigued by her dilemma we got a pen and paper and started mapping out the situation to see if there actually was a place for her to park considering her restrictions. The whole scenario started to resemble some kind of logic puzzle on an IQ test. One of those logic puzzles with ridiculous parameters, such as your car not having reverse and broken windshield wipers.

We grew tired of the parking lot scenario but we wanted to exercise our brains some more. So I suggested we check out the Learning Express Library database on NYPL.org to challenge our brains. This database is available from home with use of your library card, so the fact that it was 11:00 PM was not a problem. We started to take some of the GRE tests but it was like not fun at all. So to build up our self esteem we took the 8th grade California Mathematics test. That was a lot more fun. I'm sure 8th graders in California would be of a different opinion. But the point of this story is that the Learning Express Library is pretty nifty, and has a much more practical use then the entertainment purposes displayed here. It offers practice tests in the following fields: Air Traffic Controller, Nursing, Law Enforcement, Plumbing, Teaching and more.

If you care to take the 'park the car' challenge here is a diagram of the parking situation.  I came up with one possible solution but there might be more than that.