1260 Challenging Brain Teasers Page 43 of 84
A variety of brain teasers and questions for you to decipher and hopefully solve with some clever thinking.
631. Can you change the word FAIL into SOUR by changing one letter at a time (each time making a new word) in 4 steps?
FAIL
____
____
____
SOUR
632. The four words below can be rearranged into four new words. In some cases, there are multiple answers.
SHOP BELIED STARCH SPACE
633. A farmer bought twenty-pigs in six days. He bought on every one of the six days and an odd number of pigs each time. How many were purchased on each day?
634. One school found that all 32 of its students were successful in at least one of the three exams that each of them had taken. Of the students who did not pass Exam One, the number who passed Exam Two was exactly half of the number who passed Exam Three. The number who passed only Exam One was the same as the number who passed only one of the other two exams, and three more than the number who passed Exam One and at least one of the other two exams. How many students passed more than one exam?
635. The ages of Old and Young total 48. Old is twice as old as Young was when Old was half as old as Young will be when Young is three times as old as Old was when Old was three times as old as Young. How old is Old?
636. What are the missing numbers?
31 62 __ 25 56 __ 19
637. While Thomas is shopping at Tom Mart, he picks out five items that he wishes to purchase. He has a magazine, an orange, a hose, a television, and an apple. Which item out of the six listed below does he need to purchase to complete his order?
Belt
Table
Torch
Sandwich
Magazine
Bananas
638. A company gets 16 cans of paint each month. The problem is that one of the 16 cans is always contaminated with lead. Fortunately, the company has the capacity to test for lead by opening and testing the paint. However, due to time and money constraints, the results of the tests cannot be made known until after all of the tests have been performed. What is the fewest number of tests that must be made in order to know for certain which of the 16 cans is contaminated.
639. What two words, formed from different arrangements of the following ten letters, will complete the sentence below.
C E F G I I N R T Y
The accountant, anxious to be accurate in ___________ his client's accounts, found himself ___________ errors made by an amateur bookkeeper.
640. A businessman and his 4 sons originally took out a lease on their building for 99 years. When I asked them how much time was left on the lease, the father said, "two-thirds of the time past is equal to four-fifths of the time to come. How much time is left on the lease?
641. The names of four people are hidden in the sentence below. Can you find them? (The letters are in consecutive order.)
Don't be so critical, ice skating is fun!
642. An electrician agrees to work on the condition that he is paid 2 monetary units for everyday that he works on wiring a house, but he must forfeit 3 units on the days that he fails to work on the house. After 30 days, he finds that he has paid out exactly as much as he has received. How many days did he work on the house?
643. Ryan has three times as many sisters as he has brothers, but each of his sisters has just as many brothers as she has sisters. How many boys and girls are in the immediate family if there are not more than ten siblings?
644. Reduce the high-flown language below to a common saying.
It is impossible to compare the lack of sapience of a youthful injudicious person with the lack of sapience of a person of more advanced years.
645. Midge lives on the twelfth floor of a modern elevator apartment building. Whenever she gets into the automatic elevator on the ground floor, and no one else is in the elevator, she pushes the button for floor 6, gets off on the sixth floor, and walks up the stairway to the twelfth floor. She would much prefer to ride the elevator all the way up to her floor. Why does she do this?
