Get Free Riddles By Email!

Copying Cassette Tapes

Joe and Andrea want to copy three 60-minute cassette tapes. They have a 2-cassette recorder to copy the tapes, allowing them to copy two tapes at a time. Each side takes 30 minutes to be copied, so two tapes can be copied in an hour and the third will take another hour. Andrea bets Joe she can copy all three tapes in 90 minutes. Does she win the bet?

In the first 30 minutes Andrea copies the A sides of tape 1 and 2.
In the second 30 minutes, she copies tape 1 side B and tape 3 side A (finishing Tape 1).
In the last 30 minutes, she copies tape 2 side B and tape 3 side B.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Paris to Roye

Hans made a meandering journey from Paris to Roye. On the first day, he went half of the distance. On the second day, he went one third of the remaining distance. On the third day he went three quarters of the remaining distance. The next day he traveled half of the remaining distance and was left with 5 kilometers to get to Roye. How far was the entire journey?

120 kilometers.

Hans’ trip went like this:

Day 1 – 60 km (60 km remaining)
Day 2 – 20 km (40 km remaining)
Day 3 – 30 km (10 km remaining)
Day 4 – 5 km (5 km remaining)
Day 5 – 5 km (arrives in Roye)

Posted in Brain Teasers

Longest AIOTS word

What is the longest word you can find using only the letters AIOTS (each letter can be used any number of times)?

Tattooists, which has 10 letters.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Dragon Lewis

Rearrange the letters in this phrase to make a single word.

DRAGON LEWIS

A SINGLE WORD. Tricky, eh? But you can’t complain, since I gave you the answer.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Fewest Queens For Full Attack

What is the smallest number of queens required on a chess board to attack all squares?

5. To see where they need to be placed, check out the diagram on Wolfram’s Queens Problem page.

Posted in Brain Teasers

$500 For Basketball

500 people attended a high school basketball game and raised $500 for the school.

The prices were as follows:
Mothers $3.00
Fathers: $2.00
Children $0.48

More mothers than fathers turned up. How many children were there?

375 children (70 mothers and 55 fathers)

Posted in Brain Teasers

Letters, Letters, What Comes Next?

What letter comes next letter in this series?

A E F H I ___

K. It’s the series of capital letters without curves in alphabetical order.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Hidden Animals

How many animals can you find in this story?

“Scram, you can’t catch me!” yelled the thief. While running to escape, his shirt skewered a box of nails. He ripped free, but skidded to a stop as he passed a policeman. He tried to run again, then cowered in fright. Crime doesn’t pay.

I found thirteen, listed in the order they’re found.

1. ram
2. ant
3. cat
4. ape
5. ewe
6. ox
7. kid
8. ass
9. man
10. nag
11. hen
12. cow
13. doe

Posted in Brain Teasers

Horse Fence

Farmer Finnegan needs to build a fence to keep his horses on his property. He only has a little over 1.5 miles of fence materials, but there’s also a mile-long straight river running through his property. What shape should he use for the fenced in area to give his horses the most space possible?

Our dear friend Finnegan should build a half-circle fence with the river as the diameter, giving the horses about 0.4 square miles to frolic and play in.

Area of semi-circle = πr2 / 2 = π × .5 miles2 / 2 = 0.3927

Posted in Brain Teasers

Scrambled Auctioned

What are two other words (anagrams) that can be made from the letters in “auctioned”?

1. Cautioned
2. Education

Posted in Brain Teasers