It’s a 7 letter word. If we remove 1 letter from it, it remains the same. If we remove 2 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 3 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 4 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 5 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 6 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove all letters from it, it remains the same. What is it?
A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, “If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper, then you have to give me $50 but if I cannot, I will pay you $50.” The boy looks around and sees no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he’ll just say he weighs more or less. In the end, the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet?
A teacher decides to give a pop quiz one day but all of her students refuse to take the quiz thinking that the teacher will call off the quiz. She can give only one of these students a detention for skipping the quiz. All of the students know each other’s names and if a student knows he/she is getting a detention they take the quiz. How can she threaten her students with the single detention so they all take the quiz?
Two children, who were all tangled up in their reckoning of the days of the week, paused on their way to school to straighten matters out. “When the day after tomorrow is yesterday,” said Priscilla, “then ‘today’ will be as far from Sunday as that day was which was ‘today’ when the day before yesterday was tomorrow!” On which day of the week did they have this conversation?
There is a bottle recycling bin, with one lonely bottle inside. Every hour, on the hour, people come and put bottles into the skip. The first hour, at noon, one person came and put a bottle in. One hour later, two people placed a bottle each into the skip. An hour later four people placed a bottle each into the skip. This doubling of people continued until 11pm, when the bin was finally full. When was the bin exactly half full?
A farmer must transport a wolf, a sheep and cabbage from one side of a river to another using a boat. But in crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single item – the wolf, the sheep or the cabbage. If left together, the wolf would eat the sheep, or the sheep would eat the cabbage. How can the farmer transport the wolf, the sheep and the cabbage across the river without losing any of them?
A collective farm was due to deliver its quota of grain to the state authorities. The management of the Kolkhoz decided the trucks should arrive in the city at exactly 11:00 A.M. If the trucks traveled at 30 miles per hour they would reach the city at ten, an hour early; at 20 miles an hour they would arrive at noon, an hour late. How far is the Kolkhoz from the city, and how fast should the trucks travel to arrive at 11:00 A.M.?
How quickly can you find out what is unusual about this paragraph? It looks so ordinary that you would think that nothing was wrong with it at all, and in fact, nothing is. But it is unusual. Why? If you study it and think about it you may find out, but I am not going to assist you in any way. You must do it without coaching. No doubt if you work at it for long, it will dawn on you. I don’t know. Now, go to work and try your luck.
Two mathematicians, Tom and Smith are walking down the street. Tom: I know you have three sons. What are their ages? Smith: The product of their ages is 36. Tom: I can’t tell their ages from that. Smith: Well, the sum of their ages is the same as that address across the street. Tom: I still can’t tell. Smith: The eldest is visiting his grandfather today. Tom: Now I know their ages. Do you know the age of the kids?
A farmer challenges an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician to fence off the largest amount of area using the least amount of fence. The engineer made his fence in a circle and said it was the most efficient. The physicist made a long line and said that the length was infinite. Then he said that fencing half of the Earth was the best. The mathematician laughed at the others and with his design, beat the others. What did he do?
Two old friends, Jack and Bill, meet after a long time. Jack: Hey, how are you man? Bill: Not bad, got married and I have three kids now. Jack: That’s awesome. How old are they? Bill: The product of their ages is 72 and the sum of their ages is the same as your birth date. Jack: Cool… But I still don’t know. Bill: My eldest kid just started taking piano lessons. Jack: Oh now I get it. How old are Bill’s kids?
Your friend pulls out a perfectly circular table and a sack of quarters, and proposes a game. “We’ll take turns putting a quarter on the table,” he says. “Each quarter must lay flat on the table, and cannot sit on top of any other quarters. The last person to successfully put a quarter on the table wins.” He gives you the choice to go first or second. What should you do, and what should your strategy be to win?
A man brought a jeweler six chains that each had five links. He wanted the jeweler to join all six chains together to make one long, closed, circular chain. The jeweler said, “It’ll cost you a buck for every link I open and close. You want me to join six chains, so the job will cost you six bucks.” “No, no,” replied the man, “the job can be done for less.” Is he right, and if so, how can it be done?
You are standing in front of two gates (a left one and a right one) – one leads to Heaven and the other leads to Hell. You don’t know which gate leads where. Beside the gates, there are two angels. One of them always tells the truth and the other always lies, but you don’t know which one is which. You have one question to ask one of the angels, in order to find out which gate will lead you to Heaven. What would that question be?
You walk into a dark room in which 100 coins are scattered around on the floor. You are told that 10 of them have “heads” on top, and that 90 have “tails”. Your mission is to separate the coins into two groups such that the amount of coins showing “heads” are equal in each group. You cannot see, feel, smell, taste or hear on which side the coins are. Can you perform the mission in a way that it will always work?
