Riddles and Brain Teasers

Walking Through Paper

You have a regular sized piece of paper. How could you cut a hole in it large enough for you to walk through?

Fold the paper in half and make cuts that are almost entirely across the width of the paper. Switch between sides. When the paper is opened there will be a very large hole that you can climb through (carefully).

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Fix This Roman Numeral Equation

This Roman numeral equation is wrong, but you can fix it without changing any of the elements of the equation. How is this possible?

I + XI = X

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Look at it upside down. Instead of changing the equation, you can change your perspective.

This is from Dan Brown’s novel, Origin.

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Its Own Past Tense

What common verb becomes its own past tense by rearranging its letters?

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Eat (ate).

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Reordered Mistake

What reordered word is a mistake?

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Errored, which is an anagram of reorder.

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Next in the Sequence

Here is a series of numbers. What is the next number in the sequence?

1
11
21
1211
111221
312211

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13112221The next number in the series counts the previous numbers. Thus the first number is 1, which is one 1, or 11. To describe 11, you have two 1’s, or 21. Now you have one 2 and one 1, so the next number is 1211. The solution is to continue describing the previous number using only numbers.

13112221

The next number in the series counts the previous numbers. Thus the first number is 1, which is one 1, or 11. To describe 11, you have two 1’s, or 21. Now you have one 2 and one 1, so the next number is 1211. The solution is to continue describing the previous number using only numbers.

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Tagged with sequence

Rhonda At the Ballet

Rhonda will go see ballet but not the opera. Her favorite number is eight and she doesn’t like nine. She likes salmon but not trout. She hates Mondays and likes Wednesdays. Does she use a comb or a brush?

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A comb. Rhonda likes words with silent letters, like her name.

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One Three Five

What word comes next?

one three five four ______

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Four. Each word is the number of letters in the previous word. And since four has four letters, it would continue with four forever after.

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Too Much For One

I am too much for one, enough for two, but nothing to three. What am I?

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A secret.

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Falling Window Cleaner

A window cleaner is cleaning a window on the 25th floor of a skyscraper when he slips and falls. He has no safety equipment and nothing to soften his fall, yet he is not hurt. How can this be?

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He was cleaning the inside of the window.

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