1260 Challenging Brain Teasers Page 59 of 84
Use your expertise and mental magic to solve this variety of math, logic, and word brain teasers.
871. Alice likes cents but not dollars. She likes dimes but not nickels. She likes francs but not rupees. Following the same rule, will she like pounds or shillings?
872. What comes next in the following sequence?
2222222222222 33333333333 5555555 77777 11 11 11 ? ?
873. Make your way from BLOW to WIND in only seven steps, changing one letter at a time and making a good English word at each step.
BLOW
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
WIND
874. If a bouquet of six tulips and eight daisies costs $10, but a bouquet of eight tulips and six daisies costs $11, how much does each flower cost?
875. Two brothers went to a stamp-collecting exhibit where they wanted to buy some old stamps to add to their collections. On one table Marcus found sets of 12 stamps selling for eight dollars; the stamps could also be purchased individually. Julius went to another table that offered 32 stamps for 20 dollars. They too could be purchased individually. On the way home from the exhibit, Marcus remarked that he had spent only two dollars more for his stamps at one than had Julius, who had purchased his stamps at table two. Both boys had purchased the same number of stamps. How many did each have?
876. What two words, formed from different arrangements of the same seven letters, can be used to complete the sentences below?
The loud ________ of the six women at the lunch table grew even louder. The diners at the next table had to ________ their own noise level up a notch in order to converse.
877. When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, today will be as far from Wednesday as today was from Wednesday when the day before yesterday was tomorrow. What is the day after this day?
878. Two convicts are locked in a jail cell. There is a unbarred window high up in the cell. No matter how they try to reach the window to escape (standing on top of one another, on the bed, etc.) they fail. They have a few make shift tools and decide to tunnel out. However, they give up on the tunneling idea because it will take much too long. One of the convicts figures out how to escape from the cell in a much shorter time than the tunneling method. Can you guess his plan?
879. If 30 baseballs are needed for 9 pitchers over 2 days of practice, what is the number of baseballs needed for 11 pitchers over 3 days of practice?
880. Matt gave John as many dollars as John started out with. John then gave Matt back as much as Matt had left. Matt then gave John back as many dollars as John had left, which left Matt broke and gave John a total of $80.00. How much did Matt and John have at the beginning of their exchange?
881. When three quite ordinary words are "telescoped" together, like those given here, it is not always easy to recognize them, even though their letters are in the correct order. For example, given NONCABLEROPE, would you be able to spot that it was made up from ABLE, CROP and NONE? Now try the eight given here, bearing in mind that each is made up from three four-letter words.
AUTUMNSKILTS
SPRINGELATES
SUMMERCARPET
WINTERSTINTS
BEARORPUZZLE
TRANSPENDING
JOSEPHINEINE
OMARVLAMBERT
882. The numbers on a die are not placed at random. On every pair of opposite faces the sum of the numbers is 7: 6 is op?posed to 1, 5 to 2, and 3 to 4.
There are several other ways of placing six numbers on a die. How many ways are there altogether?
883. Tom says his grandfather is only six years older than his father. Is that possible?
884. THE VIOLIN LESSON
During Santiago's violin lesson, Professor Arion suddenly said, "You really should play piano."
Santiago kept on playing the violin.
Finally, Professor Arion clapped his hands and said, "Good!"
What change had Santiago made in his violin playing?
885. One for the children or the little child inside you: Would you rather a tiger chased you or a zebra?
