Riddles and Brain Teasers

Making Lots of Shirts

In a textile factory, 5 machines take exactly 5 minutes to make 5 shirts. How many minutes will it take 100 machines to produce 100 shirts?

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5 minutes. It takes each machine 5 minutes to make a shirt, so if you have all 100 machines running at the same time, they’ll produce the 100 shirts in 5 minutes.

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A Silent Z

What word in the English dictionary has a silent z?

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The word rendezvous. Even though it’s a French word, it’s in the English dictionary and is pronounced [rahn-duh-voo].Turns out rendezvous isn’t the only one. Another word is oyez.

The word rendezvous. Even though it’s a French word, it’s in the English dictionary and is pronounced [rahn-duh-voo].

Turns out rendezvous isn’t the only one. Another word is oyez.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Where I Never Was

You saw me where I never was and where I could not be. And yet within that very place, my face you often see. What am I?

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A reflection

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A Special Group of Words

These words all fall into a special group. Your challenge is to nominate one of the words below and determine why it fits into the special group.

RING
TOPS
MANATEE
WINDLESS
EARTH
ANGER

Choose the word that also falls into the above group

a. MATTER
b. TUNES
c. OUGHT
d. HEARTH

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c. OUGHT

Each of these words forms a different word when the last letter is moved to the front.

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Black, Red and White

What’s black when you get it, red when you use it, and white when you’re all through with it?

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Charcoal.

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A Hidden Message

44 33 555 555 666 9 666 777 555 3

What is the message in this code?

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Pressing these digits in sequence will produce HELLO WORLD on a cell phone (for an SMS text message).

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Full of Holes Yet Full of Water

I’m full of holes, yet I’m full of water. What am I?

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A sponge.

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A bag contains 64 balls of eight different colors. There are eight of each color (including red).
What is the smallest number you would have to pick, without looking, to be sure of selecting 3 red balls?

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59. The first 56 balls could all be non-red colors. If that happened, you’d have to choose from the 8 remaining balls, all of which would be red.

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