Monday 18 July 2011

TRICKY QUESTION

  1. By moving one of the following digits, make the equation correct. 62 - 63 = 1
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  2. You have a fox, a chicken and a sack of grain. You must cross a river with only one of them at a time. If you leave the fox with the chicken he will eat it; if you leave the chicken with the grain he will eat it. How can you get all three across safely?
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  3. You have 12 black socks and 12 white socks mixed up in a drawer. You're up very early and it's too dark to tell them apart. What's the smallest number of socks you need to take out (blindly) to be sure of having a matching pair?
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  4. What is special about the following sequence of numbers?
    8 5 4 9 1 7 6 10 3 2 0
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    The numbers are in alphabetical order.
    (eight, five, four, nine, one, seven, six, ten, three, two, zero)

  5. Three travelers register at a hotel and are told that their rooms will cost $10 each so they pay $30. Later the clerk realizes that he made a mistake and should have only charged them $25. He gives a bellboy $5 to return to them but the bellboy is dishonest and gives them each only $1, keeping $2 for himself. So the men actually spent $27 and the bellboy kept $2. What happened to the other dollar of the original $30?
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  6. You are the bus driver. At your first stop, you pick up 29 people. On your second stop, 18 of those 29 people get off, and at the same time 10 new passengers arrive. At your next stop, 3 of those 10 passengers get off, and 13 new passengers come on. On your fourth stop 4 of the remaining 10 passengers get off, 6 of those new 13 passengers get off as well, then 17 new passengers get on. What is the color of the bus driver's eyes?
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  7. A rooster lays an egg at the very top of a slanted roof. Which side is the egg going to roll off on?
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  8. U2 has a concert that starts in 17 minutes and they must all cross a bridge to get there. All four men begin on the same side of the bridge. You must help them across to the other side. It is night. There is one flashlight. A maximum of two people can cross at one time. Any party who crosses, either 1 or 2 people, must have the flashlight with them.

    The flashlight must be walked back and forth. It cannot be thrown and other tricks like that are not needed to solve the problem. The solution is simply a matter of allocating resources in a certain order. Each band member walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the rate of the slower man's pace:

    Bono: 1 minute to cross
    Edge: 2 minutes to cross
    Adam: 5 minutes to cross
    Larry: 10 minutes to cross

    For example: if Bono and Larry walk across first, 10 minutes have elapsed when they get to the other side of the bridge. If Larry then returns with the flashlight, a total of 20 minutes have passed and you have failed the mission.
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  9. Why is it very common to have a 9 minute snooze interval on alarm clocks, why not 10 instead?
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  10. A bookworm eats from the first page of an encyclopedia to the last page in a straight line. The encyclopedia consists of ten 1000-page volumes and is sitting on a bookshelf in the usual order. Not counting covers, title pages, etc., how many pages does the bookworm eat through?
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  11. An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What does the wise man say?
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  12. An 18-wheeler is crossing a 4 kilometer bridge that can only support 10,000 kilograms and that's exactly how much the rig weighs. Halfway across the bridge a 30 gram sparrow lands on the cab, but the bridge doesn't collapse. Why not?
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  13. A completely black dog was strolling down Main Street during a total blackout affecting the entire town. Not a single streetlight had been on for hours. Just as the dog was crossing the middle line a Buick Skylark with 2 broken headlights speedily approaches his position, but manages to swerve out of the way just in time. How could the driver have possibly seen the dog to swerve in time?
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  14. In a small cabin in the woods, two men lay dead. The cabin itself is not burned, but the forest all around is burned to cinders. How did the men die?
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  15. Ida puts her coffee into the microwave, as she does every morning, for exactly 2 minutes. When the microwave goes off, she opens the door, but then closes the door again and sets the microwave for 2 more seconds. What good would 2 more seconds be?
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  16. Beulah died in the Appalachians while Craig died at sea. Everyone was much happier with Craig's death. Why?
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  17. You are a cook in a remote area with no clocks or other way of keeping time other than a four minute sandglass timer and a seven minute sandglass timer. (The kind you turn over - hourglass shaped) You do have a stove, however, with water in a pot already boiling. Somebody asks you for a nine-minute egg, and you know this person is a perfectionist and will be able to tell if you undercook or overcook the eggs by even a few seconds. What is the least amount of time it will take to prepare the egg? And how will you prepare it so that it is neither undercooked or overcooked?
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  18. I am the owner of a pet store. If I put in one canary per cage, I have one bird too many. If I put in two canaries per cage, I have one cage too many. How many cages and canaries do I have?
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  19. Here is a series of numbers. What is the next number in the sequence?
    1
    11
    21
    1211
    111221
    312211
    13112221
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  20. My daughter has many sisters. She has as many sisters as she has brothers. Each of her brothers has twice as many sisters as brothers. How many sons and daughters do I have?
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  21. What seven-letter word has hundreds of letters in it?
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  22. If you had a ton of feathers and a ton of stones which would be heavier?
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  23. Tom's mother has three children. One is named April, one is named May. What is the third one named?
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  24. Two women apply for a job. They are identical and have the same mother, father and birthday. The interviewer asks, "Are you twins?" to which they honestly reply, "No".

    How is this possible?
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  25. You are standing outside a closed door. On the other side of the door is a room that has three light bulbs in it. The room is completely sealed off from the outside. It has no windows and nothing can get in or out except through the door. On the outside of the room there are three light switches that control each of the respective light bulbs on the other side of the door.

    Your assignment is to determine which light switch controls which light bulb. You are allowed to enter the room only once, and once you come out, you must be able to state with 100% certainty which light switch controls which light bulb.
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  26. If a bottle and a cork cost a dollar and a nickel, and the bottle costs a dollar more than the cork, how much does the cork cost?
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  27. A boat has a ladder that has six rungs. Each rung is one foot apart. The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12 inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour.

    When the tide is at its highest, how many rungs are under water?
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  28. You have a lighter and two fuses that take exactly one hour to burn, but they don't burn at a steady rate. For example, one fuse could take 59 minutes to burn the first inch and then burn the rest of the fuse in the last minute.

    How would you use these two fuses to measure 45 minutes?
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  29. You have two buckets - one holds exactly 5 gallons and the other 3 gallons. How can you measure 4 gallons of water into the 5 gallon bucket?

    (Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that there are no measurement markings of any kind on the buckets.)
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  30. A princess is as old as the prince will be when the princess is twice the age that the prince was when the princess's age was half the sum of their present ages.

    What are their ages?
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