When I taught math classes, I'd put one or more of these on each quiz as a bonus question. Idea stolen from a teacher I had, of course. I've tormented various friends with these questions before, and thought it might be nice to put them somewhere everywhere can see them. Please read each question carefully. These are harder than you think. Or rather, they are harder if you don't think!
1. Can a man from Michigan legally marry his widow's sister?
2. There is three errers in the sentence. Can you find them?
3. If you had only one match and entered a room in which there were a kerosene lamp, a fireplace, and a wood-burning stove, which should you light first?
4. If a hobo can take five cigar butts and make them into one cigar, how many cigars can he make from twenty-five cigar butts?
5. What do the following words have in common?
deft - first - calmness - canopy - laughing - stupid - crabcake - hijack - defer - nope - roughing
6. If you have a round cake, how can you cut the cake into eight equal pieces by making only three straight cuts?
7. Three men went to a hotel and were told that there was only one room left and that it would cost $30 for the night. They paid $10 each and went to the room. The desk clerk, discovering that by mistake he had overcharged them by $5, asked the bellboy to return the $5. The bellboy, not being as honest as the desk clerk, reasoned that since $5 is not easy to divide three ways, he would keep $2 and return $1 to each of three men. This means that each man actually paid only $9 each, or a total of $27 for the room. Add to that the $2 that the bellboy kept, and the total is $29. Where did the missing dollar go?
8. Assume a certain type of water lilies double in area every twenty-four hours. At the beginning of the summer, there is only one water lily on a lake. It takes sixty days for the lake to become completely covered with water lilies. On what day is it half covered?
9. By drawing one line, make the following figure into an even number: IX
10. Which letter is missing from the following: B D F H J N P V
11. What common five-letter word does the following clue represent? H I J K L M N O
12. A bus company does not allow passengers to carry luggage over 4 feet long onto its buses. A man has a one-piece fishing pole 5 feet long. How can he take it onto the bus?
13. What are the next two letters? O T T F F S S E ? ?
14. What is a five-letter word that is pronounced exactly the same after removing four of the letters?
15. How many animals of each species did Moses take onto the ark?
16. If a red house is made with red bricks, a blue house is made with blue bricks, and a black house is made with black bricks, what is a greenhouse made with?
17. Is there a Fourth of July in England?
18. How many birthdays does the average man have?
19. Some months have 31 days; how many have 28?
20. In baseball, how many outs are there in an inning?
21. Divide 30 by 1/2 and add 10. What is the answer?
22. If I have 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?
23. A farmer has 17 sheep standing in a field and all but 9 drop down and die. How many sheep are left standing?
24. If a doctor gives you five pills, telling you to take one every half hour, how long will it take before you have taken all the pills?
25. How many two-cent stamps are there in a dozen?
26. Which weighs more, a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers?
27. A rooster sits at on the very top of a barn roof. If he lays an egg, will the egg roll off to the North or South side of the roof?
28. I have two US coins that have a total value of 30 cents and one of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?
29. Lee’s parents emigrated from China. They have five children. Four of the children are named La, Le, Li, and Lo. What is the fifth child’s name?
30. You’re the pilot of an airplane that travels from New York to Chicago – a distance of 800 miles. The plane travels at 200 MPH and makes one stop for 30 minutes. What is the pilot’s name?
31. If the Vice President of the United States died, who would be President?
32. John digs a hole that is 2 yards wide, 3 yards long, and 1 yard deep. How many cubic feet of dirt are in it?
33. You have two lengths of rope not of uniform width. Each burns for exactly 1 hour. How do you calculate 45 minutes by using the ropes?
34. Count the F's in this sentence: FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
35. How long did the Hundred Years War last?
36. Which country makes Panama hats?
37. From which animal do we get cat gut?
38. In which month do Russians celebrate the October revolution?
39. What is a camel's hair brush made of?
40. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
41. What was King George VI's first name?
42. What color is a purple finch?
43. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
44. What color was General Washington's white horse?
45. What does the word 'Dutch' originally mean?
46. Each year at Annapolis, the upperclassmen ask the freshmen how many bricks it took to finish paving the main courtyard. There is one answer that is possible to reach without ever counting or measuring, or even visiting the courtyard. How many bricks DID it take to finish paving the main courtyard?
47. You are competing in a race and overtake the runner who is in second place. In which position are you now?
48. Take 1000. Add 40. Add another 1000. Add 30. Plus 1000 again. Plus 20. Plus 1000. And add 10. What is the total?
49. One letter was removed from ten common words. The remaining letters of each word are below, in order. What is the letter that was removed, and what are the words?
dgr - xcd - sntnc - lvn - chs - vrgrn - ndl - lmnt - rsrv - rlct
50. What is the next letter of the following sequence of letters?
J A S O N ?
51. Sometimes the numbers displayed on a digital watch are in consecutive order. For example, 2:34. How many times does this occur in a twelve-hour period?
52. What is the fewest number of U.S. coins required to have the exact change for all possible amounts from one cent up to and including one dollar in one-cent increments?
53. You have a dart board with three rings. The center is 17 points, the next ring is 13 points, and the outside is 9 points. How many darts must be thrown into the dart board to get a score of exactly 84?
54. How can you divide seven apples among 12 people such that everyone will have exactly equal portions? Each apple is not to be cut into more than four pieces.
55. What is the missing number?
2, 3, 10, 12, 13, _?_, 21
56. A woman gives a beggar 50 cents, the woman is the beggar's sister, but the beggar is not the woman's brother. How come?
57. Two women play five games of checkers. Each woman wins the same number of games. There are no ties. How can this be so?
58. You have only an 8-liter jug and a 3-liter jug. Both containers are unmarked. You need exactly 4 liters of water. How can you get it, if a water faucet is handy?
59. Joe bought a bag of oranges on Monday, and ate a third of them. On Tuesday he ate half of the remaining oranges. On Wednesday he looked in the bag to find he only had two oranges left. How many oranges were originally in the bag?
60. You come across a sparrow that has fallen into a hole. The hole measures three inches in diameter and is three feet deep. Due to the depth of the hole, the sparrow cannot be reached by hand. You cannot use sticks or canes, because you could hurt the bird. How can you free the bird without causing it any harm?
61. How can you physically stand behind your father while he is standing behind you?
62. Art bought a used car for $600 and sold it to someone for $800. He later bought it back for $1000 and resold it for $1200. Did he make any profit, and if so, how much?
63. There is an ancient invention still used in some parts of the world today that allows people to see through walls. What is it?
64. What runs fore to aft on one side of a ship, and aft to fore on the other side? (Besides a drunken sailor.)
65. Mr. and Mrs. Plum have six daughters and each daughter has one brother. How many people are in the Plum family?
66. An orchestra of 120 players takes 70 minutes to play Beethoven's 9th Symphony. How long would it take for 60 players to play the symphony?
67. Let’s suppose you have a set of 40 marbles, evenly divided amongst 4 different colors: 10 red marbles, 10 green marbles, 10 blue marbles and 10 yellow marbles. The marbles of each color are also numbered sequentially from 1 to 10. So, each marble can be uniquely identified by combination of color and number (i.e., there is only one marble that is red and number 3). If you randomly pick two marbles, calculate the probabilities of the following outcomes:
a - The two marbles are the same color
b - The two marbles are the same number
c - The two marbles are not the same number AND not the same color
68. The number 8,549,176,320 contains all the digits from 0 to 9. But what makes this number unique?
69. I have eight eggs. I break two, I fry two, I eat two. How many eggs are left?
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