Jack Goldstein - 101 Amazing Brainteasers: Riddles and Puzzles for All Ages

Title Page

101 AMAZING BRAINTEASERS

Jack Goldstein

Publisher Information

Published in 2013 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The right of Jack Goldstein to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright 2013 Jack Goldstein

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Introduction

Contained within this book are over one hundred fun brainteasers for children and adults alike. Covering subjects including numbers, words, logic problems and lateral thinking they are sure to have you scratching your head - until you reveal the answers (at which point youll say you knew it all along!)

These brainteasers are separated into sections for easy navigation and will test every area of your brain whether you are old or young. Full answers and solutions are provided.

Questions

What Is It? - Part 1

Each of these questions is a riddle; all you need to do is guess the common thing that is being referred to. Good luck!

1. You can throw me off the highest building in the world and I will not break. But my life ends if you place me gently in the ocean.
2. You must break me before you use me.
3. If you put your fingers in my eyes, my jaws will open wide.
4. I have no beginning, end or middle.
5. The more you take, the more you leave behind.
6. Im full of holes but still hold water.
7. I am bigger when Im new, but grow smaller with use.
8. I turn things around but never move myself.
9. I have four fingers and a thumb but I am not alive.
10. You throw it out when you want to use it, but take it back in when you are finished with it.

Easy When You Know How

Think carefully about these. Theyre obvious if you think about them!

1. A man wearing black clothes (including a black hat, scarf and black shoes) is walking down a street. The streetlights are all off. A black car (with its headlights off) comes speeding down the road, but manages to stop before hitting the man. How did the driver see him?
2. A man once claimed he knew the score of every soccer game before it had even started. What is more is that he was always correct - how?
3. Why is it not legal for a man in America to marry his widows sister?
4. Two kids are playing in a sandpit. One has four piles of sand, the other has two. They combine them. How many piles are there now?
5. Sallys mum has four children. The first three are called Lala, Lele and Lili. What is the fourth called?
6. Why cant a man living in Australia be buried in England?
7. A man shaves fifteen times a day but still has a beard. How?
8. A man walks into a restaurant and the waiter says good day Admiral. Why did the waiter call the man Admiral?
9. How did the 22 nd and 24 th US Presidents have the same parents - but were not brothers?
10. Three large people try to crowd under one small umbrella, but nobody gets wet. How is this possible?

Sequences

Can you spot patterns? Here are some letter and number sequences to test you.

1. What comes next: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...?
2. How about after T,T,T,F,F,S,S...?
3. Again, what comes next: 3,3,5,4,4,3,5,5...?
4. Getting the hang of it yet? What about F,S,T,F,F,S...?
5. What comes next: J,F,M,A,M,J,J...?
6. How about these: O,T,T,F,F,S,S...?
7. What comes next: 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, 13112221...
8. What is the missing letter in this sequence: W,I,T,?,L,I,T,S.
9. Why are the following numbers organised in the order in which they are: 8, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 10, 3, 2?
10. This is very difficult: What comes next: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11...?

Word Games

Here are some puzzles about words and letters.

1. A redhouse is made from red bricks. A bluehouse is made from blue bricks. A yellowhouse is made from yellow bricks. What is a greenhouse made from?
2. Which word when forwards is heavy, but backwards is not?
3. Which four letter word reads the same both forwards, backwards, the right way up AND upside down?
4. Which word do you use to describe someone who doesnt have all their fingers on one hand?
5. What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years?
6. What five letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
7. What well-known phrase does this represent: MEREPEAT
8. Which word in the English language is always spelt incorrectly?
9. Which word changes both gender and number when the letter s is added?
10. How many letters are there in the alphabet?

Read These Carefully

Things may not be what they seem...

1. What weighs more: a ton of feathers or a ton of bricks?
2. A rooster lays an egg at the very top of a slanted roof, with one side facing North and the other South. To which side will the egg roll?
3. Twenty pigeons are sat on the branches of a tree. A man shoots one pigeon with his gun. How many are now left on the tree?
4. When in history was Christmas and New Year celebrated in the same year?
5. If I have three apples and you take away two, how many do you have?
6. Before mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
7. Why do American women eat more rice than American men?
8. Theres a one storey house in which everything is red. The carpets are red, the furniture is red and even the walls are red. What colour are the stairs?
9. You are driving some people around a village in a bus. Five people get in at the first stop and four get off. Six people get off at the second stop and four get on. At the third stop, two get off and nine more get on. What therefore is the color of the drivers eyes?
10. How many birthdays does the average man have?

General Brainteasers

There are brainteasers in a variety of subjects. If you get all of them right you have a very good level of general intelligence!

1. An archaeologist found a coin dated 81 B.C. and tried to sell it to a museum. Just by his description over the phone they knew it was fake - how?
2. A yacht which is anchored in a port has a ladder hanging over the side. It is low tide right now. The length of the ladder is 150cm, the distance between each rung is 30cm and the bottom rung touches the water. The tide rises at a rate of 15cm an hour. When will the water reach the fifth rung?
3. I have two U.S. coins that add up to fifty-five cents. One is not a nickel (thats like a 5p piece in England). What are the two coins?
4. You begin reading a book that is three hundred pages long. If you read half of the remaining book each day, how long would it take you to finish it?
5. What always ends everything?
6. A girl is sitting in a house at night that has no lights on at all. She has no lamp, no candle, in fact no source of light. Yet she is reading. How?
7. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose from three punishment rooms. The first is full of the hottest fires on earth, whereas the second is full of lions that havent eaten in 3 years. The third is full of assassins with loaded guns. Which room would be the safest for him to choose?
8. If you drop a 5kg iron bar and a 10 kg bag of cotton from a height of 70 meters which will reach the ground first?
9. How many eggs can you put in an empty basket 12 inches by 18?