There are three cups of flour and you take one away. How many cups of flour do you have now?

There are three boxes labeled "Apples", "Oranges", and "Apples and oranges". Each box has the wrong label on it. How could you correctly label all three of the boxes by taking one fruit from one of the boxes?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerA piece of fruit would be taken from the "Apples and oranges" box. Since this is the wrong label you know whatever fruit you draw from this box is all the same and you can give that box the proper label. Since all of the boxes started out wrong you know that the last box with its original label is wrong and can be labeled "Apples and oranges". From here you can just put the final label on the final box.

 

There are three cups of flour and you take one away. How many cups of flour do you have now?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerYou only have one cup that you took away.

 

There are three switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of the three light bulbs in the attic. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in any position.
How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you are only allowed one trip upstairs?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerKeep the first bulb switched on for a few minutes. It gets warm, right? So all you have to do then is ... switch it off, switch another one on, walk into the room with bulbs, touch them and tell which one was switched on as the first one (the warm one) and the others can be easily identified :-)

 

There are two ropes that both take exactly 1 hour to burn from end to end. You are unable to cut the rope. How can you burn the two ropes in a total of 45 minutes?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerStart one of the ropes on fire from both ends and the other one from one end. After a half an hour one rope will be completely burnt and the other will be half burnt. At this point you light the final rope from the unlit side and it will take 15 minutes for the remaining half of the rope to burn, for a total of 45 minutes.

 

There is a basket full of hats. 3 of them are white and 2 of them are black. There are 3 men Tom, Tim, and Jim. They each take a hat out of the basket and put it on their heads without seeing the hat they selected or the hats the other men selected. The men arrange themselves so Tom can see Tim and Jim's hats, Tim can see Jim's hat, and Jim can't see anyone's hat. Tom is asked what color his hat is and he says he doesn't know. Tim is asked the same question, and he also doesn't know. Finally, Jim is asked the question, and he does know. What color is his hat?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerThe hat is white. If Tom doesn't know his hat color then the other two men's hats cannot be both black otherwise he would know his is white. When Tim doesn't know his hat color either, that means Jim's hat could not be black otherwise Tim would have to know his hat was white to fulfill the information discovered through Tom's answer.

 

There is a chain nailed to the wall. The chain is 10 feet long and the center of the chain dips down 5 feet from where each side of the chain is nailed to the wall. How far are the 2 ends of chain from each other?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerBoth ends are nailed with the same nail. In order for the 10 foot chain to dip down 5 feet it must dip 5 feet down and 5 feet up, totaling the length of the chain.

 

There is a clerk at the butcher shop, he is five feet ten inches tall, and he wears size 13 sneakers. He has a wife and 4 kids. What does he weigh?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerMeat.

 

There is a horse tied to a rope. The rope is 12 feet long. There is a bale of hay 25 feet in front of the horse. The horse is able to eat the hay, yet does not break the rope. How is that possible?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerThe rope isn't tied to anything.

 

There is a man standing over a dead body in a coffin, and another man walks in and asks, who's in the coffin. The first man replies, brothers and sisters, I have none, but this man's father is my fathers son. Who's in the coffin?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerHis son.

 

There is a one story house. The walls are blue, the floor is pink, the stove and cupboards are red. What color are the stairs?
Show Answer            Hide AnswerThere are no stairs because it is a one story house.