ITV The Mint Show by Quizmania sucks. Late night quiz show in the UK.

[friday]

Here is a test for all dnf'ers.

In the UK there is a quiz show called "The Mint".
From Midnight last night to 3.30AM I watched the show where a puzzle with a top prize of £40,000 remained unsolved before been taken of the air at 3.30 am. The problem is the phone callers to the show pay a premium rate to dial in with their answer but on several occassions people rang in with what I felt was/or could be the correct answer to the puzzle. Here is the puzzle word for word:
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Add the numbers

Nineteen minus five =

4 + 3 x 2 =

6 - 5 =

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I actually came up with 2 answers that could be equally acceptable a. 29 or b. 25 (depending on how you calculated the second piece of the puzzle).

Several people rang in with those answers throughout the night while others realizing that those answers were not been accepted by the show started to be very creative by using formulas such as just counting how many numbers were there physically, so counting them coming up with 7, to others getting th result of each piece of the puzzle and putting the answers together to get either 14101 or 14141. But as far as I can see there was at least 20/30 callers who rang in that are entitled to £40,000.

But here is my question. How would you solve this puzzle and what's the answer?

[hunnam]

I've watched that a few times and used up all my free minutes 1 night ringing up, I actually rang non stop for 5 minutes and they were keep saying on the show "nobody is ringing so please pick up the phone".

Its a scam and they must make a fortune, the questions are so easy but the answers leave you scratching your head.

[LoneDomainer]

ive had £3000 from the mint and £1500 fro quiz mania
but i do disagree with their practices

that puzzle had me stumped too

Add the numbers

Nineteen minus five = 14

4 + 3 x 2 = 10 ( BODMAS order of mathematics )

6 - 5 = 1

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they didnt even tell you what the answer was

i and over 350 people that i know of from birmingham has contacted trading standards about this, quiz mania is the same and now similar shows are appearing on chennel 4 ( although to be fair their answers are hidden behind velcro so at least you know that was the original answer )

[friday]

Well done with the wins LD.

Thanks for clarifying the name for the order of mathematics, I couldn't remember the name, but based on that order I came up with 25. However there is a strong case for 29 as well, the Bodmas order was not declared to the viewers so people read from left to right and ended up declaring 29.

It was an extremely busy night for them, the presenters mentioned on several occassions that they were far exceeding the number of calls they ordinarily get. The quality of answers and calibre of contestants were high, lots of software programmers, enginners etc ringing in. Once 25 & 29 were ruled out people came up with some very innovative answers that were also ruled out. Every one of them should be entitled to £40,000 including the people who declared 25 & 29. Maybe this is just a huge publicity stunt on Quizmania's behalf but Ofcom should intervene and insure that everybody that got through should collect £40,000 each. After 25 & 29 were declared out I thought it was a complete hoax that simply managed to draw in huge revenue for the station. I just wish I had gotten on air to clarify my name and off to the solicitors office today. I do suspect a lot of those that did get through to the show are doing just that today.

As for the other word puzzles the answers for the bigger prizes on the big games have been nonsensical, but Ofcom are fully aware of that, dont know what if anything they have done about that though.

What I would like is a couple of maths professors/students to declare the answers to the above puzzle for clarification.