I saw this question on an old I.Q. test... Which is least like the others Potatoes, tomatoes, peas, or corn?

Question

Honestly I think that you could pick any one. But only the people who composed the test would know for sure. What do you think?
Potatoes... In the ground, legumes, brown, they have 'eyes'.
Peas... multiple seeds/berries in a pod, green, legumes, fruit?
corn... cereal, multiple seeds, yellow, technically fruit.
tomatoes... multiple seeds, red, a fruit.

Maybe it's peas, because nobody would pick peas as an answer.

Answer 1

Corn as all the rest have an "e" and "a" in the name
Peas as all the rest have an "o" in the name
Corn as all the rest are plural words and corn (on the cob) is singular.
Tomatoes as they were once thought to be poisonous.
It really is arbitrary, depends on your criteria

On the "is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable?" issue: Wikipedia writes:

Fruit or vegetable?

Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, that is a fruit or, more precisely, a berry. However, from a culinary perspective, the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called fruits and it is typically served as part of a main course of a meal, as are other vegetables, rather than at dessert. As noted above, the term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term.

This argument has led to actual legal implications in the United States, Australia and China. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables but not on fruits caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy in 1893, declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, using the popular definition which classifies vegetable by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert. The case is known as Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304). While the Tomato can be classified as a fruit, it is officially categorized as a definite vegetable in the United States.

The USDA also considers the tomato a vegetable.

Strictly speaking, the holding of the case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, and not much else. The court does not purport to reclassify tomato for botanical or for any other purpose other than paying a tax under a tariff act.

In concordance with this classification, the tomato has been proposed as the state fruit of New Jersey. Arkansas takes both sides by declaring the "South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato" to be both the state fruit and the state vegetable in the same law, citing both its botanical and culinary classifications.

But due to the scientific definition of a fruit and a vegetable, the tomato still remains a fruit when not dealing with tariffs. Nor is it the only culinary vegetable that is a botanical fruit: eggplants, cucumbers, and squashes of all kinds (including zucchini and pumpkins) share the same ambiguity.

Answer 2

A lot of the answerers are speaking out of ignorance. Don't take any notice of anyone who says tomato. Pick the first person who said anything intelligent about potatoes ... a potato is a vegetable (tuber = underground stem); all the others are seed-bearing ... pea pods are fruits and the peas are seeds, corn 'niblets' are cereal grains (=one seeded fruits); I don't need to say anything about the tomato.

Answer 3

I think the correct answer is corn. This is for a variety of reasons, among these are that corn has tetraploid chomosomes while all of the others are diploid. Furthermore, corn has no wild analog, whereas the other three grow happily in the wild in their native habitats. Corn is a cereal grain, and as such, an entire civilization was founded on its agriculture, while none of the other three can say the same. Corn grows on a stalk, whereas the other three plants are vines. Corn is the only one that is wind pollinated, whereas the rest are pollinated by bees. But I agree, you could make a good case for any of the other three as well, especially potatoes. And, well, peas are the only ones consumed green. I could go on and on. I also like many of the previous answers.

Answer 4

Potatoes are the only one that are botanically not a fruit (they're not a legume, though; they're in the nightshade family with tomatoes). Commercially I think all these are vegetables, but corn might be a grain.
Corn is the only monocot, but I doubt IQ testers would think that's important. It's also the only one not plural, which might be the tricky sh*t they'd pull.

Answer 5

That's a weird question because potatoes and corn are considered grains, tomatoes are fruit and peas are...well...they're just peas. Peas don't have the letter 'o' in them, though the rest do...I guess

Answer 6

Why do so many people give such simplistic answers: tomatoe is a fruit.
Why is corn a vegatable. The designations of fruit and vegetable are arbitrary and unsuportable as is any answer to this question.

Answer 7

Both are good for you, each fruit/vegetable has different vitamins. And so as more variety, as better. Vegetables have generally less sugar than fruits.

Answer 8

I vote with the potato crowd. They grow in the ground and they are not a fruit (which grows from a flower) but are a repository organ for starch.

Answer 9

Tomato is a fruit. The others are vegetables.

Answer 10

A potato is the only one of your examples that is not formed from a flower. The potato is a root, and therefore would be grouped seperately.