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The puzzles are marked with stars ( ) that show the degree of difficulty of the given puzzle. | |
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Copyright © 1996-2011. RJE-productions. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be published, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the authors.
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Climbing Snail
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A snail is at the bottom of a 20 meters deep pit.
Every day the snail climbs 5 meters upwards, but at night it slides 4 meters
back downwards.
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The Question:
How many days does it take before
the snail reaches the top of the pit?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Segmented Numbers
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Of all the numbers whose literal representations in
capital letters consists only of straight line segments (for
example, FIVE), only one number has a value equal to the
number of segments used to write it.
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The Question:
Which number has this property?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Hans & Gerrie
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Hans is standing behind Gerrie and at the same time
Gerrie is standing behind Hans.
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The Question:
How is this possible?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Abracadabra with Apples
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In Miss Miranda's class are eleven children.
Miss Miranda has a bowl with eleven apples.
Miss Miranda wants to divide the eleven apples among the children of her class,
in such a way that each child in the end has an apple, but one apple still remains
in the bowl.
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The Question:
Can you help Miss Miranda?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Tour de France
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The Question:
In the Tour de France, what is the position of a rider, after he passes the second placed rider?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Chain Connection 
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You have five pieces of chain, each consisting of three links.
You want to make one long chain of these five pieces.
Breaking open a link costs 1 euro, and welding an open link costs 3 euros.
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The Question:
Is it possible to make one long chain of the five pieces, if you have just 15 euros?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Poor & Rich
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The poor have it,
the rich want it,
but if you eat it you will die.
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The Question:
What is this?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Twins Trouble
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Julius and Vincent are brothers.
"We are born within the same hour," says Julius, "on the same day of the same year."
"But," says Vincent, "we are no twins!"
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The Question:
How is this possible?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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One, Two, Three
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Using the digits 1 up to 9, three numbers (of three digits each)
can be formed, such that the second number is twice the first number,
and the third number is three times the first number.
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The Question:
Which are these three numbers?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Ten Trees
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Joyce has bought ten trees for her garden.
She wants to plant these trees in five rows, with four trees in each row.
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The Question:
How must Joyce plant the trees?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Another Question:
Joyce's neighbour George has bought nine trees for his garden.
How can he plant these nine trees in ten rows, with three trees in each row?
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Another Answer:
Click here!...
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Colored Grid
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Consider a grid of size 4 x 4 (i.e. sixteen squares),
where all squares should get a color. The colored grid should meet
the following conditions:
- 4 squares should be colored blue,
- 3 squares should be colored red,
- 3 squares should be colored white,
- 3 squares should be colored green,
- 3 squares should be colored yellow, and
- no color may appear more than once in any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line.
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The Question:
How can the grid be colored?
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A Hint :
Click here!...
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Consecutive Elements
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The objects in this row have something in common:
One of the following three objects is the
next element in the row.
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The Question:
Which one is the next element?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Two Pots
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On the right, you see a silver and a golden pot.
One of these pots contains a treasure and the other one is empty.
Assume that you can determine from the text prints which pot contains the treasure.
The text prints on the pots are:
The silver pot: "This pot is empty."
The golden pot: "Exactly one of these texts is true."
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The Question:
Which pot contains the treasure?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Horse Trade
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A man decides to buy a nice horse. He pays $60 for it,
and he is very content with the strong animal. After a year, the value
of the horse has increased to $70 and he decides to sell the horse.
But already a few days later he regrets his decision to sell the
beautiful horse, and he buys it again. Unfortunately he has to pay $80
to get it back, so he loses $10. After another year of owning the horse,
he finally decides to sell the horse for $90.
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The Question:
What is the overall profit the man makes?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Hotel Hocus
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Three salesmen went into a hotel to rent a room.
The manager stated that he had only one room left, but all three could
use it for $30.00 for the night. The three salesmen gave him $10.00 each
and went up to their room. Later, the manager decided that he had charged
the salesmen too much so he called the bellhop over, gave him five
one-dollar bills, and said: 'Take this $5.00 up to the salesmen and tell
them I had charged them too much for the room'.
On the way up, the bellhop knew that he could not divide the five one-dollar
bills equally so he put two of the one-dollar bills in his pocket and
returned one one-dollar bill to each of the salesmen.
This means that each salesman paid $9.00 for the room.
The bellhop kept $2.00.
Three times nine is 27 plus two is 29.......
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The Question:
What happened to the extra dollar?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Birthday Cake
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The birthday cake on the picture must be cut
into eight equally sized pieces. However, you are allowed to make
only 3 straight cuts.
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The Question:
How can the cake be cut into eight pieces with only 3 straight cuts?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Happy Birthday
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When Sandra had her birthday in the year 2000 she became 8 years old.
But she was born in the year 2008.
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The Question:
How can you explain this?
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The Answer:
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Smaller Squares
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On the right you see a square of 5 by 5 smaller squares.
The purpose is to divide the square along the lines in four pieces, in such a way
that you can make two smaller squares with these four pieces, without needing
to rotate the pieces.
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The Question:
How should this be done?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Strange Sequence
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Here is a sequence of numbers:
1 11 21 1211 111221
It seems to be a strange sequence, but yet there is a system behind it...
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The Question:
What is the next term in this sequence?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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Another Question:
Here is another sequence of numbers:
1 11 21 1211 1231 131221
What is the next term in this sequence?
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Another Answer:
Click here!...
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Unusual Paragraph
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This is a most unusual paragraph. How quickly can you find out what is so
unusual about it? It looks so ordinary that you would think
that nothing is 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 any hints or coaching.
No doubt, if you work at it for a bit, it will dawn on you. Who
knows? Go to work and try your skill. Good luck!
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The Question:
What is unusual about the above paragraph?
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The Answer:
Click here!...
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