problem solving brain teasers with answers

70+ Challenging Riddles for Adults (With Answers)

Test your logical thinking and problem-solving skills with these fun brain teasers and puzzles. These riddles for adults start on a light note with a dirty joke or fun riddle, and then gradually dives into the trickier puzzles. Towards the end, you’ll find the harder riddles, the ones that are more complicated and more difficult to solve… 

Funny Riddles 

Here are some easy riddles , ones that are funny and that you most likely have heard before. Keep in mind that there will be some dirty riddles in here that might not be appropriate for a kid. But if you’re an adult–enjoy! 

I am a rock group with four members. All dead, one was assassinated. What am I?

Mt. Rushmore.

What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?

It’s time to fix the fence.

What’s messy and can be really annoying and/or tricky to clean up after sex?

I saw a boat full of people, yet there wasn’t a single person on the boat. How is that possible?

They were all married.

Why is Europe like a frying pan?

Because it has Greece at the bottom. 

I go in hard, come out soft, and you love to blow me. What am I?

Chewing gum.

What has ten letters and starts with gas?

Automobile. 

I start with a “p” and ends with “o-r-n,” and I’m a major player in the film industry. What am I?

What goes up but never comes down?

A king, a queen, and two twins all lay in a large room. How are there no adults in the room?

They’re all beds!

Some people prefer being on top, others prefer being on the bottom, and it always involves a bed. What am I? 

A bunk bed.

Why can’t we take a picture of a man with a wooden leg ?

The wooden leg is not a camera.

I assist with erections. Sometimes, giant balls hang from me. I’m known as a big swinger. What am I?

Samuel was out for a walk when it started to rain. He did not have an umbrella and he wasn’t wearing a hat. His clothes were soaked, yet not a single hair on his head got wet. How could this happen?

Because Samuel is bald! 

All-day long it’s in and out. I discharge loads from my shaft. Both men and women go down on me. What am I?

An elevator.

What has four legs like a dog, two eyes like a dog, looks just like a dog but is not a dog?

A picture of a dog! 

What tastes better than it smells?

Your tongue! 

What is as light as a feather, but even the strongest man in the world can’t hold it in for long?

His breath. 

What does a teddy bear do when it rains? 

It gets wet! 

What’s long and hard and has cum in it?

A cucumber.

Challenging Riddles 

Here are some brain teasers that might require some problem-solving skills and logical thinking . They’re tricky, but not impossible to answer . It’s just some good riddles that will get you to really use your brain .  

You walk into a room that contains a match, a kerosene lamp, a candle, and a fireplace. What would you light first?

The match. 

How many letters are in the alphabet?

There are 11 letters in “the alphabet”.

A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms: the first is full of raging fires; the second, assassins with loaded guns, and the third, with lions who haven’t eaten in years. Which room is the safest?

The room with the lions because the lions are already dead. 

What five- letter word stays the same when you take away the first, third, and last letter ?

All 5 sisters are busy. Ann is reading a book, Rose is cooking, Katy is playing chess, and Mary is doing the laundry. What is the 5th sister doing?

She’s playing chess, of course! 

A man is asked what his daughters look like. He answers, “they are all blondes, but two, all brunettes, but two, and all redheads, but two.” How many daughters does he have?

Three. One is blonde, one is brunette, and one is a redhead.

David’s father has three sons: Snap, Crackle and…? 

You always find me in the past, I can be created in the present, but the future can never taint me. What am I?

A man is found hanging dead from the ceiling of a room. The room’s dimensions are 15 x 15 x 15. The man is only 6ft tall and the rope was only 2ft long. There are no windows and only one door into the room. The door is bolted shut from the inside and there is a puddle of water under the man . How did he kill himself?

The man stood on a block of ice.

How can you drop a raw egg on the concrete floor without cracking it?

The egg won’t crack the concrete floor! 

What has thirteen hearts but no other organs?

A deck of cards.

In a bus, there is a 26-year-old pregnant lady, a 30-year-old policeman, a 52-year-old random woman, and the driver who is 65 years old. Who is the youngest?

The baby of the pregnant lady.

Two in a corner, 1 in a room, 0 in a house, but 1 in a shelter. What am I?

The letter “R”

What English word does the following: the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four letters signify a great person , while the entire word signifies a great woman. What is the word ?

A boy and an engineer were fishing. The boy is the son of the engineer but the engineer is the father of the boy. Then who is the engineer?

The engineer is the boy’s mother. 

In a one-story pink house, there was a pink person , a pink cat, a pink fish, a pink computer, a pink chair, a pink table, a pink telephone, a pink shower– everything was pink! What color were the stairs?

There weren’t any stairs, it was a one-story house!

A plane crashed between the border of Canada and America. Where do you bury the survivors?

They are survivors, you don’t bury them.

A woman is sitting in her hotel room when there is a knock at the door. She opened the door to see a man whom she had never seen before. He said, “Oh I’m sorry. I have made a mistake. I thought this was my room.” He then went down the corridor and in the elevator. The woman went back into her room and phoned security. What made the woman so suspicious of this man?

You don’t knock on your own hotel room door! 

What is special about the number 854,917,632?

It’s the numbers from 1-9 in alphabetical order.

What word in the English language has three consecutive double letters ?

Bookkeeper.

My first is in chocolate but not in ham, my second’s in cake and also in jam, my third at tea-time is easily found, my whole is a friend who’s often around. What am I?

Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?

They are a grandfather, father, and son.

A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. Next, she hangs him. Right after, they enjoy a lovely dinner. Explain.

She took a picture of him and developed it in her darkroom.

A man is trapped in a room. The room has only two possible exits: two doors. Through the first door, there is a room constructed from magnifying glasses. The blazing hot sun instantly fries anything or anyone that enters. Through the second door, there is a fire-breathing dragon. How does the man escape?

He waits until night time and then goes through the first door.

Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?

A is the brother of B. B is the brother of C. C is the father of D. So how is D related to A?

A is D’s aunt.

A man was found murdered on Sunday morning. His wife immediately called the police. The police went to the crime scene and question the wife and staff and got these alibis: The wife said she was sleeping, the cook was eating breakfast, the gardener was picking vegetables, the maid was getting the mail, the butler was cleaning the closet. The police instantly arrested the murderer. Who did it and how did they know?

It was the Maid. She said she was getting the mail but there’s no mail on Sundays.

Difficult Riddles

All of the puzzles below are considered to be logic riddles , ones that you’ll really need to think about to get the answer . 

Tim and Mel are long-distance lovers. Tim has just purchased an engagement ring for Mel and wants to mail it to her. Unfortunately, the only way to ensure the ring will be received is to place a lock on the package. Tim has locks and Mel has locks but neither have keys for each others’ locks. How can they ensure the ring isn’t stolen?

Tim places a lock on the package and sends it to Mel. Mel places one of her locks on the package and sends it back to Tim. Tim removes his lock and sends the package back to Mel.

I am a word of 5 letters and people eat me. If you remove the first letter, I become a form of energy. Remove the first two and I’m needed to live. Scramble the last 3 and you can drink me. What am I?

Wheat, heat, eat, tea

Which English word is the odd one out – Stun, Ton, Evil, Letter , Mood, Bad, Snap, Straw?

The person who makes it has no need of it; the person who buys it has no use for it. The person who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it?

The answer I give is yes, but what I mean is no. What was the question?

“Do you mind ?”

My buddies and I were inseparable mates Til one by one were we split My teacher, she gave me a smack on the pate And off in the corner I sit. Admittedly still I’m not hitting the books Though now I’m hugging a tree I guess in the end it’s not bad as it looks I went from a C to a B…

(Clue: it’s an object)

What can go up a chimney down, but can’t go down a chimney up?

An umbrella.

What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?

Your left hand.

A man is found murdered in his office. The suspects are Peter, Julie, Jason, Molly, and Brian. In the office is a calendar with the numbers 6,4,9,10,11 written in blood. Who is the killer?

Jason is the killer. The numbers indicate months and the first letter of each month spells the name of the murderer, e.g. the 6th month is June and the first letter of June is J, the 4th month is April and the first letter of April is a, and so on.

There are 3 switches outside of a room, all in the ‘off’ setting. One of them controls a lightbulb inside the room, the other two do nothing. You cannot see into the room, and once you open the door to the room, you cannot flip any of the switches anymore. Before going into the room, how would you flip the switches in order to be able to tell which switch controls the light bulb?

Flip the first switch and keep it flipped for five minutes. Then unflip it, and flip the second switch. Go into the room. If the lightbulb is off but warm, the first switch controls it. If the light is on, the second switch controls it. If the light is off and cool, the third switch controls it.

You walk into a creepy house by yourself. There is no electricity, plumbing or ventilation. Inside you notice 3 doors with numbers on them. Once you open the doors you will die a particular way. Door #1 You’ll be eaten by a lion who is hungry. Door #2 You’ll be stabbed to death. Door #3 There is an electric chair waiting for you. Which door do you pick?

Door #3, Since There Is No Electricity To Harm You.

With pointed fangs I sit and wait, with piercing force I serve out fate. Grabbing bloodless victims, proclaiming my might; physically joining with a single bite. What am I?

Short Riddles: Math Edition 

Everyone loves a good ol math riddle!   Math riddles are a great way to test your smarts and make sure that you actually did learn something in school: 

I have two coins equaling fifteen cents. One of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?

A dime and a nickel. One of the coins is not a nickel, but the other one is. 

Mom and dad have four daughters, and each daughter has one brother . How many people are in the family?

If 9999=4, 8888=8, 1816=6, 1212=0, then 1919=? (Clue: Closed areas.)

2. 9999 has 4 closed areas (the top of the ‘9’).8888 has 8 closed areas (the top and bottom parts of 8 and there are no other digits). 1816 has 3 closed areas (top and bottom of 8 and bottom of 6, and it has 2 other digits (3 * 2 = 6)). 1212 has 0 closed areas, (0 * 4 = 0).

If you multiply me by any other number, the answer will always remain the same. What number am I?

Which is correct: 18 plus 19 is 36. Or 18 plus 19 are 36?

Actually, both are incorrect – 18 plus 19 is 37!

When does 11+3=2?

On a clock.

There was a large truck that needed to cross a 20-mile long bridge. Unfortunately, the bridge could only hold the weight of 12000 lbs. Even a single pound extra, the bridge would collapse. However, the weight of the truck is exactly 12000 lbs. The driver carefully drove and crossed almost 85% distance of the bridge. He stopped to get a small break. Suddenly, a bird landed on the truck. Did the bridge collapse? 

No, the bridge doesn’t collapse. The truck almost crossed 85% of total distance. Equivalent diesel would have been lost. So the extra weight of the bridge doesn’t add any extra load to the bridge.

3 hens lay 3 eggs in 3 days. How many eggs do 12 hens give in 12 days?

48 eggs. One hen lays 1 egg in 3 days or 4 eggs in 12 days. 12 hens give 48 eggs in 12 days.

Challenging Adult Riddles 

Here are some fun yet complicated riddles for adults wanting to challenge themselves and really use the depths of their brains to figure out the answer (s).

Hard Mythology Riddle  

There is a mythological story of a Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion and the head of a woman. Apparently, the Sphinx sat on top of a rock along the road to the city of Thebes, stopping travelers and proposing to them a riddle . The Sphinx claimed that whoever failed the riddle would be killed, and evidently, not pass through to the city. This is the riddle : 

What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three legs in the evening?

Oedipus, the king of Thebes, figured out the answer to this logic puzzle :

Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff. (Morning, day, and night are representative of the stages of life.)

Buried Treasure Riddle

The best way to find the right answer to this brainteaser is through logic and deductive reasoning. 

After a storm tears through the Hex Archipelago, you find five grizzled survivors in the water. Shivering their timbers, they explain that they’re the former crew of the great pirate Greenbeard, who marooned them after they tried to mutiny. Each was bound up in a different spot on a small island, until the storm washed them out to sea. In gratitude for saving them, they reveal a secret: the island they were on is also where Greenbeard has buried his treasure hoard. But when the sailors try to describe the island, something seems off. All agree it was flat and barren with no prominent features except for some trees. Yet each pirate claims they saw a different number of trees, ranging from two to six. The pirate who saw two trees says the treasure was buried right at his feet. When you fly your hot air balloon over the area to investigate, you see hundreds of small islands, each with exactly six trees. The next storm will be here soon, so you’ll have to hurry and narrow your search. What does the island with Greenbeard’s treasure look like from the sky? And where will the treasure be on that island? 

• All islands have exactly 6 trees of equal height. 
• The islands are all flat, have no obstructions other than trees and their precise shapes aren’t important.
• Each pirate was confined in a specific spot and saw a different number of trees, ranging from 2 to 6. They could look all around but not move. 
• The treasure was buried at the feet of the pirate who saw 2 trees.

No, the pirates aren’t delirious from dehydration. Remember, each was confined to a separate point on the island, and no two of them could see the same number of trees. That means that for all but one pirate, something was blocking their view. And since there are no other features on the island, that something could only have been other trees.

A pirate would see fewer trees when two or more fell along a straight line from their vantage point. So we need to find the island where five different pirates standing in different spots would each see a different number of trees. Virtually every island has a position from which you can see six trees. And on most islands there’s a position where 5 trees can be seen by standing in line with two of them. It turns out that the hardest locations to find are those with fewer visible trees precisely because they require more trees to line up with the viewer’s position. So how can we see just two trees. One way would be if all the trees were lined up in single file, such as on this island. Then, you could stand at the end of the line and see one, stand in the middle and see two, or stand anywhere else and see all six. But there’s no place from which you can see only three, four, or five, so one straight line of trees is out. So what about two lines of trees? So long as the lines aren’t parallel and they intersect over land, there’ll always be a position where the two lines converge from which you could see exactly two trees. And if they’re grouped two and four, or three and three, there are many arrangements in which you could also see three, four, five, and six trees. 

Fortunately for us, there’s only one island in the archipelago with two non-parallel lines of trees, and it’ll be buried at the intersection of the two lines. (X marks the spot!) You land on this island and dig up a chest containing a massive pile of tree seeds. 

Prisoner Hat Riddle

Here’s a great mind -boggling riddle :

100 prisoners are lined up single file. A blue or red hat is placed on each of their heads randomly. The prisoners cannot see the color of the hat on their own head, but they can see the colors of all the hats in front of them. The prisoner in the back can clearly see all 99 hats in front of him. The 50th prisoner in line can see the 49 hats in front of him, and the prisoner in the front of the line cannot see anything but the forest before him. Also, the prisoners don’t know the proportion of red hats to blue hats in advance—it could be 50/50, but it could also be any combination that adds to 100.

A guard is going to walk down the line, starting in the back, and ask each prisoner what color hat they have on. They can only answer “blue” or “red.” If they answer incorrectly or say anything else, they will be shot dead on the spot. If they answer correctly, they will be set free. Each prisoner can hear all of the other prisoners’ responses, as well as any gunshots that indicate an incorrect response. They can remember all of this information.

Before the executions begin, the prisoners get to huddle up and make a plan. How can the prisoners ensure that most people possible survive?

The prisoners come up with the following plan: 

If the first prisoner to speak—the one in the back of the line—sees an even number of blue hats, he will yell out “blue.” If he sees an odd number of blue hats, he will yell out “red.”

Let’s assume the first prisoner to speak yells out “blue,” indicating that he sees an even number of blue hats. Then the next prisoner to speak can look at the line in front of him, and if he sees an odd number of blue hats, he knows his hat must be blue to make the number even. Similarly, if he sees an even number of blue hats, he knows his hat must be red to keep it that way. The same logic works if the first prisoner yells out “red,” indicating that there are an odd number of blue hats.

The next prisoner in line listens to the prisoner behind him and takes that information into consideration. If he sees an even number of blue hats and the prisoner behind him yells “blue,” making the total number of blue hats odd, then he knows his hat must be blue to make the total number even again (of the 99 seen by the first prisoner). In the same situation, if his hat were red, the total number of blue hats would be odd (of the 99 seen by the first prisoner).

As you go down the line, each prisoner must count how many blue hats are behind them. Then he must consider the blue hats in front of him. If the number of blue hats behind a prisoner plus the blue hats he can see in front of him equals an odd number, then he knows his hat must be blue to make the total number even, or red to make the total number odd (not counting the very first prisoner).

The very first prisoner is the maybe-martyr of the group. He is imparting information to the rest of the group that has nothing to do with the hat on his own head, which he cannot know, and so his chances of living are only 50%.

More Riddles

• Riddles with Answers
• Short Riddles
• Riddles for Adults
• Riddles for Teens
• Riddles for Kids
• Funny Riddles
• Tricky Riddles
• Hard Riddles
• Easy Riddles
• Math Riddles

About the author

January Nelson

January Nelson is a writer, editor, and dreamer. She writes about astrology, games, love, relationships, and entertainment. January graduated with an English and Literature degree from Columbia University.

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110 Icebreaker Riddles with Answers

By: Grace He | Updated: December 14, 2022

Here is our list of the best icebreaker riddles .

Icebreaker riddles are fun puzzles and brain teasers that involve players thinking out of the box to find the answers. These questions are a great way to break the ice during a gathering. Examples include “What has branches but no fruit, leaves, or trunk?,” What word contains all 26 letters?,” and “What has a bottom at the top?” The purpose of these questions is to test how much a player can think critically and unveil the hidden meaning of these riddles.

These riddles are similar to workplace riddles and team building riddles . Icebreaker riddles are an example of problem-solving games and brain teasers for teams . These riddles are similar to team building puzzles and icebreaker jokes .

This list includes:

• funny work riddles with answers
• riddle icebreakers for virtual meetings
• logic riddles for adults
• icebreaker riddles for work
• riddles about teamwork

Here we go!

Funny work riddles with answers

• Q: What did the smelly shoe say to the smelly feet before going on a long walk? A: This socks
• Q: A spider was seeking a job and got a role in IT. Why did the spider get the job? A: Because spiders are great web designers
• Q: What has branches but no fruit, leaves, or trunk? A: A bank
• Q: Two monkeys were sitting on a tree. One monkey jumped, and the other followed too. Why did the other monkey jump as well? A: Monkey see monkey do
• Q: What belongs to you, but your friends use more than you do? A: Your name
• Q: I have a face and two hands but no legs or arms. What am I? A clock
• Q: What is extremely light, but even the strongest man cannot hold for over five minutes? A: Breath
• Q: What can you see in the middle of April and March but cannot find at the beginning or end of either month? A: The letter “R”
• Q: What word contains all 26 letters? A: Alphabet
• Q: I have 13 hearts but no other organs. What am I? A: A deck of cards
• Q: What do snakes give each other when they say goodbye? A: A little hiss on the cheek
• Q: Sometimes, I can be sour or sweet. Sometimes, I am red or green. People say I put doctors out of business. What am I? A: Apple 
• Q: Spelled backward, I am something people hate. Spelled forward, I am what you do every single day. What word am I? A: Live
• Q: What is full of holes but still retains water? A sponge
• Q: If a farmer properly feeds and houses a rooster, then how many eggs will the animal lay on average? A: Roosters do not lay eggs
• Q: I am a word. My first two letters describe a male, while my first three letters describe a female. My first four letters describe a great man. All my letters together describe a great woman. What word am I? A: Heroine
• Q: What starts with a T, ends with a T, and has a T in it? A: A teapot
• Q: What has many teeth but cannot bite? A: A comb
• Q: I get smaller every time I take a bath. What am I? A: Soap
• Q: What can you break even without holding? A: A promise
• Q: If you have me, then you should not share me. If you share me, then you do not have me anymore. What am I? A: A secret
• Q: There was a plane crash, and every single passenger survived. Who died? A: The passengers in a relationship
• Q: What has a tail and head but no body? A: A coin
• Q: What two words contain thousands of letters? A: Post office 
• Q: There are two ducks behind a duck, two ducks in front of a duck, and one duck in the middle. How many ducks are there? A: Three ducks
• Q: What building has the most stories? A: A library
• Q: What has a bottom at the top? A: Your legs
• Q: What has many keys but cannot open a single lock? A: A piano
• Q: What can jump but has no legs? A: Jumper cables
• Q: Michelle’s father has three daughters. The first two daughters are Angel and Bangel. What is the name of the third daughter? A: Michelle
• Q: A cowboy rides into town on Monday. He stayed in town for two days and left on Monday. How was that possible? A: The name of the cowboy’s horse is Monday
• Q: I am a fruit, a bird, and a person. What am I? A: Kiwi
• Q: What do Europe and a frying pan have in common? A: They both have “Greece” at the bottom
• Q: How many months have 28 days? A: All months have 28 days
• Q: What can you hold in your right hand but not in your left hand? A: Your left hand

Riddle icebreakers for virtual meetings

• Q: How can you tell Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus are about to get married? A: They all have rings
• Q: What do the moon and a dollar have in common? A: Four quarters
• Q: What can you find on the ground at all times but will never get dirty? A: Shadow
• Q: What ball can you roll but cannot bounce or throw? A: Eyeball
• Q: I can be hard, and I can be soft. I can be hot, and I can be cold. I can be still, and I can run. What am I? A: Water
• Q: What is always coming but never arrives? A: Tomorrow 
• Q: The more you take from me, the larger I get. What am I? A: A hole
• Q: If the day before two days after the day before tomorrow is Saturday, then what day is today? A: Friday
• Q: How many “9” s are there between 1 to 100? A: 20
• Q: What has a neck and wears a cap but does not have a head? A: A bottle
• Q: How can you spell “C-O-W” in thirteen letters? A: SEE O DOUBLE YOU
• Q: Where do roads, cities, and jungles exist, but there are no vehicles, people, or animals? A: A map
• Q: A word that starts and ends with the letter “h.” People often describe this word as wealth. What is the word? A: Health
• Q: I only have one color. I do not have a permanent size. You will see me in the sun, but when the rain comes, I hide. I cannot cause you harm, and I feel no pain either. What am I? A: Shadow 
• Q: Between a ton of feathers and a ton of sand, which is heavier? A: None is heavier since they both weigh a ton
• Q: A woman goes for a walk during a storm with nothing to protect her from the rain. She does not have an umbrella or a hat. But by the end of her walk, there is no single wet hair on her head. Why does the woman have no wet hair? A: She is bald.
• Q: There are tons of passengers aboard a boat. But when you look well, you cannot see a single passenger. Why? A: Because all the passengers are in a relationship or married.
• Q: No one wants to have me, but no one wants to lose me too. What am I? A: A lawsuit 
• Q: When I am alive, everyone sings to me. But when I die, everyone claps for me. What am I? A: A birthday candle
• Q: I am a room with no doors, windows, or walls. What am I? A: A mushroom

Logic riddles for adults

• Q: Where is the only place you will find today before yesterday and tomorrow in the middle? A: A dictionary
• Q: What does everyone has but cannot lose? A: Shadow
• Q: If five cats spend five minutes catching five mice, then how long will a cat take to catch one mouse? A: Five minutes
• Q: Who is your father’s only sister’s sister-in-law? A: Your mother
• Q: A boy clocked five on his last birthday and will be seven on his next birthday. How is this possible? A: Today is his sixth birthday
• Q: There are two mothers and two daughters in a car. Yet there are only three passengers in the vehicle. How is that possible? A: The three passengers are the grandmother, mother, and daughter
• Q: What is the one thing that all persons, irrespective of religion and politics, agree is between heaven and earth? A: The word “and”
• Q: What is 3/7 chicken, 2/3 cat, and 2/4 goat? A: Chicago
• Q: Which of these English words is odd in the set? Mood, stun, strap, straw, letter, and evil. A: Letter, because this word is the only one that does not form a meaningful word when written backward
• Q: An electric train is traveling north at 50mph. What direction will the train’s smoke go if the wind blows at 65 mph? A: An electric train does not produce smoke
• Q: A woman was at her mother’s funeral when she saw a man standing at a pew. She fell in love with him at first sight. However, her efforts to find him after the burial were in vain. A few weeks later, the woman killed her sister. Why did she kill her? A: So she can see the man again at her sister’s funeral
• Q: Imagine you got trapped in a room with only two exits. At the first exit, there is a dragon that destroys everything that walks through the passage. At the second exit, there is a passage built with magnifying glasses which fries anything that passes, particularly when the sun is hot. How can you escape? A: By waiting until nighttime to pass through the second passage
• Q: On the first day of January, two boys were born to the same mother at the same time and year. Yet, the boys are not twins. How is this possible? A: The two boys are a part of a set of triplets or even quadruplets

Icebreaker riddles for work

• Q: What does not talk but will only respond after you speak? A: Echo
• Q: You can call me the father of fruits. What am I? A: A papa-ya
• Q: What room do ghosts avoid? A: The living room
• Q: What do an island and the letter “T” have in common? A: They are both in the middle of the water
• Q: What goes up but never comes down? A: Your age
• Q: What is the only English word with three consecutive sets of double letters? A: Bookkeeping
• Q: If a plane crashes on the border of Canada and America, then where will they bury the survivors? A: You literally cannot bury survivors
• Q: A woman dies of old age on her 26th birthday. How is that possible? A: She was born on February 29
• Q: What gets dirty by becoming white? A: A blackboard
• Q: What kind of band does not play music? A: Rubber band
• Q: The more you take me, the more of me you leave behind. What am I? A: Footstep.
• Q: What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to the word? A: Short
• Q: What kind of ship has two mates but no captain? A: Relationship
• Q: Who marries many people but cannot marry himself? A: A priest
• Q: Can you guess the word in the dictionary spelled incorrectly? A: Incorrectly
• Q: What can you find twice in November, once in February, and not at all in April? A: The letter “E”
• Q: I am a word that has the same pronunciation even if you remove four out of my five letters. What word am I? A: Queue
• Q: What occurs twice in a moment, once in a minute, and never in 100 years? A: The letter “M”
• Q: What do you buy to eat but never consume? A: Cutlery
• Q: I get shorter the longer I live. What am I? A: A candle
• Q: You can catch me, but you cannot throw me. What am I? A: Cold
• Q: I run around an entire yard without even moving. What am I? A: A fence
• Q: What begins with an “E” and only contains one letter? A: An envelope
• Q: A bus driver went down a one-way lane in the opposite direction. He went past several cops, but they did not stop him. Why? A: Because the bus driver was walking and not driving
• Q: If you have me but show me to your friends, then I am gone. What am I? A: Secret
• Q: Why are carrots great for the eyes? A: Because Rabbits do not wear glasses
• Q: What has four fingers and a thumb but is not living? A: A glove
• Q: I am the shortest among my peers. When happy, people often raise me above others. What am I? A: A thumb
• Q: What is harder for you to catch the faster your run? A: Breath

Riddles about teamwork

• Q: What is that one thing everyone does at the same time? A: Get older
• Q: I will live if I fall off a building. But if I fall into the water, then I will perish. What am I? A: A piece of paper
• Q: A man lives on the 10th floor of a building. Every morning, he takes the elevator to the ground floor to work. If he returns on a rainy day or when other folks are inside the elevator, then he can take the elevator back to the 10th floor. Otherwise, he has to stop on the 7th floor and take the flights of stairs to his apartment. Why does the man behave this way? A: Because he is so short. On a rainy day, he can use his umbrella to push the 10th-floor button or use the help of others inside the elevator. But if he is alone, then he can only reach the 7th-floor button.
• Q: Why did an invisible man turn down a job offer? A: Because he could not see himself doing the job
• Q: I taste better than I smell. What am I? A: The tongue 
• Q: How many bananas can you eat if your stomach is empty? A: Just one banana. Your stomach is no longer empty after eating one
• Q: What makes you young? A: By adding the letters “ng” to you
• Q: You are my sister, but I am not your sister. What am I? A: Your brother
• Q: Take away the whole, and some remain. What am I? A: “Wholesome”
• Q: Where can you finish a book without completing a sentence? A: Prison

Playing riddles is a fun way to break the ice at work. You can challenge your group to several riddle questions at the start of a meeting or even during your lunch break. Riddles can spark laughter, especially after discovering the hidden answers you could not have imagined. Riddles can also help boost your team’s morale, especially after a long work day. Alongside breaking the ice, riddles allow players to work on their problem-solving skills and learn new facts. For a more fun challenge, you can turn the activity into a friendly contest and watch your friends rack their brains to find the answers.

Next, check out lists of work icebreaker questions , icebreakers for large groups , icebreakers for small groups , and leadership icebreakers .

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FAQ: Icebreaker riddles

Here are answers to questions about icebreaker riddles.

What are icebreaker riddles?

Icebreaker riddles are fun questions that often have several answers. These questions test how well participants can think to determine the hidden answer to the questions. Icebreaker riddles are a good game to spark laughter among your employees or encourage your team to work together. The difficulty levels for riddle questions usually vary. So you can try harder riddles if your team members are up for a challenge.

What are some good riddles to use as icebreakers?

Good riddles you can use as icebreakers include:

These riddles will get your teammates rolling with laughter while having fun.

Author: Grace He

People & Culture Director at teambuilding.com. Grace is the Director of People & Culture at teambuilding.com. She studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, Information Science at East China Normal University and earned an MBA at Washington State University.

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People & Culture Director at teambuilding.com.

Grace is the Director of People & Culture at teambuilding.com. She studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, Information Science at East China Normal University and earned an MBA at Washington State University.

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The Ultimate Collection of Brain Teasers To Keep You Thinking All Day

• December 4, 2020

Brain teasers are fun. People have been solving them for millennia and still we enjoy them. Putting the brain to the test, pushing beyond cognitive thinking, and utilizing logic and creativity, brain teasers satisfy our inherent urge to solve problems.

So, here we have compiled an ultimate list of brain teasers — from logic and lateral thinking to visual puzzles, from math and numbers brain teasers to riddles, and more — all that’ll challenge your thinking and keep you busy for hours. Can you solve them all? 

Logic and Lateral Thinking Brain Teasers

Logic and lateral thinking brain games provide a complete mental exercise by working on both logic and creative thinking. Some of these brain teasers require you to find the logic behind the puzzle to get the solution while some require out-of-the-box thinking that breaks from the traditional notions. Try these ones to get started.

1. Which Way Is the Bus Going? (This Is a Bus in the US.)

Answer: The bus is traveling left.

Look at the bus — the doors are not visible. This means the passengers would get on the bus from the opposite side. And since the bus is in the US — where they drive on the right side — the bus is traveling left.

Did you know kids are slightly quicker in answering such visual brain teasers (although they can be inaccurate sometimes)? And research by the University of London found out this is because children under 12 perceive visual information differently from adults.

2. This Brain Teaser Requires High Observation Skills: Guess Who’s Married?

This brain teaser is all about observation and some logic-lateral thinking. Look at pictures carefully, do you see any signs or indications to identify a married woman? Yes, the second woman has a ring on her ring finger.

3. Find Which Glass Will Fill up First? (Tip: Look at the Pipes Carefully.)

If you thought it is 6, it’s wrong. Look at the pipes connected to beakers. The lower pipe connected with the first beaker is closed — the water won’t go through it.

So now eliminating options with closed pipes, it’s the beaker number 5 that’ll fill up first.

4. This Logic Brain Teaser Will Test Your Visual Judgment.

Just look at the opposite sides of the triangle. You’ll get the answer.

5. Guess the Car’s Parking Spot Number.

To solve this you’ll need to look at the puzzle from a different angle. What you see are inverted numbers, the actual sequence is 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91.

Enjoying these brain teasers? We have something better for you. Download Smart Brain, the top-rated brain game for iOS and Android.

6. guess the correct top view of the tower..

First, look at the reference tower carefully. It has orange on the top, yellow beneath it  — but of equal size so won’t be visible from the top, a larger yellow with a slightly larger orange at the bottom.

So the aerial view of the tower should consist of a pattern from a smaller orange pattern followed by a larger yellow base and again comparatively larger orange. That’s the first pattern — A.

7. Can You Guess the Total Number of Blocks?

Did you count the blocks that are hidden behind? The bottom layer has 5 blocks, the second layer has 3 and the top layer has 1 block.

Visual Puzzles and Brain Teasers

Visual puzzles test your ability to visualize things. If you have a knack for visual-spatial judgment, you might have visual-spatial intelligence — one of the intelligences as per Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences — that enables you to think in three-dimension and picture concepts in mind.

8. Can You Spot the Panda?

9. Can You Spot the Pig?

10. Can You Find Which Butterfly Will Reach the Flower First?

So how long did you take to find out?

Mazes are great brain teasers because it really makes you think. To navigate through a complex labyrinth and find out a way, you indeed have to use enough cognitive resources.  Mazes are also great brain games for kids as they help build their problem-solving and visual-motor skills.

11. Guess the Correct Shadow.

12. quick — can you find the mistake.

Answer: “Mitsake” is the mistake.

It’s funny how our mind fails to recognize the simple mistake. This phenomenon is called intentional blindness in which we fail to notice other things while focusing on one particular object. Here, you were focusing on numbers and missed the word.

13. Stroop Test

Stroop effect is the phenomenon when you recognize the semantic meaning of the word instead of the color. If you’re doing it for the first time, it can be difficult to recognize the color as the meaning of the words conflicts with your brain. Try it yourself.

Speak the color of the words — not the semantic meaning — from the following graphic.

14. Advanced Stroop Test

Along with the colors, shapes are added in this Stroop test to challenge your brain. Try it.

Speak out the color and shapes — not the semantic meaning of the word — in the following graphic.

Riddle Brain Teasers

Riddles are the old but goodie brain teasers that have stood the test of time. They are fun, engaging, enable you to think creatively, and of course, utterly satisfying. Here, let’s start with some easy ones.

15. What’s the Thing That Shoots but Never Kills?

Answer: Camera

Okay, that was an easy one. Let’s see if you can solve the next riddle.

16. Who’s the Doctor?

Answer: The doctor is the boy’s mother.

The picture of fishing with the son conjures a “son-dad time” picture. Our mind perceives it must be the son’s dad or a male figure who went fishing.  Well, that’s how these riddles play with our minds.

17. A Woman Born in 1975 and Died in 1975. She Was 22 Years Old at the Time of Death. How?

Answer: One of the numbers (1975) could be the hospital room or even a postal code.

Science-Based Brain Teasers

At some point, we all have studied the basic principles of physics, chemistry, and other science. But what’s funny is these basic principles and laws have washed away from our memory, sometimes making us wonder about the basic science behind the things. 

These science-based will take you back to the science class and test your knowledge with some brain-teasing science problems.

18. Look at the Picture: Will the Scale Remain Balanced or Will Tilt To One of the Sides?

Answer: It will tilt.

It’s because of the principle of Buoyancy. Although the two objects are of the same weight, when they are immersed in water they go through weight loss. And the weight loss is equal to the water displaced. So the larger object — the stone — will displace more water than the iron weight. So the scale will tilt.

19. Brain Trivia: Name One Animal That Has Blue Blood

Answer: Octopus, Squid, Horseshoe Crabs 

The reason why these animals have blue blood is because of hemocyanin, a copper-rich protein present in their blood. While animals with red blood including humans have Hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein responsible for the red color.

Math and Number Brain Teasers

Math brain teasers are a treat for every math lover. Some require pure logic and a knack for calculations while others are just lateral thinking problems masquerading in numbers. We’ve put together some of these brain teasers to get you started.

20. What’s the Missing Number?

This brain teaser requires you to observe the number and find-out the logic. Look carefully the number in the center circle of each line is half the sum of numbers towards its left and right. So, for the last line, the answer’ll be: 9 + 3 = 12 (÷ 2) = 6.

21. Find the Total Number of Students in the Class.

Since Alex ranked 9th from the top there are 8 students ahead of him. And he ranked 38th from the bottom that means 37 students are behind him.

So the total number of students will be 8 + Alex + 37= 46.

22. Number Brain Teaser – Guess the Missing Number.

Here’s the trick. The wheel is a piechart. Each number and the section represents the percentage. So 100 – 66 (total of the numbers) = 34. Were you baffled?

23. Can You Guess the Number?

The trick is to count the total number of intersections. In the first the lines intersect 9 times, in the second it’s just 1 and in the third one it’s 4 times.

24. What Should Be the Time in the Last Watch?

Answer: 7:05 

Observe the time difference in each watch, there’s a pattern.

(1st watch) 9:05 – 12 mins = 8:53 (2nd watch)

8:53 – 24 mins = 8:29 (3rd watch )

8:29 – 36 mins = 7:53 (4th watch)

7:53 – 48 mins = 7:05 (5th watch)

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20+ Brain Teasers And Answers | MindYourLogic Brain Teasers

Welcome to our daily brain teasers and answers! Our brain teasers and answers are made to challenge your brain and test your thinking skills. Embark on this thrilling journey with us as we unravel these brain teasers and answers together and keep your minds sharp!

1. If five peacocks lay ten eggs in 2 days, how many peacocks will lay 100 eggs in 24 days?

Answer: Peacocks don’t lay eggs. Peahens do.

2. How many oranges can you put in an empty container?

Ans: A single orange – If you put an orange, it will not be an empty container.

3.You are running in a 5000-meter marathon, and you have beaten the person in second place. Where are you?

Ans: Second place

4. Two girls have played and completed five games of chess. Each of them won the same number of fun, and there was no tie in any game. How did it happen?

Ans: The two girls did not clash and played with different opponents

5. A farmer had 20 cows. Due to a contagious disease, all cows except 11 died suddenly. How many cows does he have now?

Ans: 11 cows – ALL but 11 cows died – 11 cows survived.

6. A girl is sitting in a house at night with no light. There is no lamp, no candle, nothing. Yet she reads. How? ‘Or’ What?

Ans: The woman is blind and reads braille.

7. If there are three apples and you take 2, how many do you have?

Ans: If you take two apples, of course, you have 2.

8. A house has four walls. All the walls face south, and a bear surrounds the house. What color is the bear?

Ans: The house is on the north pole, so the bear is white.

9. Two mothers and two daughters had a picnic consisting of ham, potato salad, and beans. Each person ate only one dish. How is it possible that no one is hungry?

Ans: They were a grandmother, mother, and daughter.

10. How can you throw a ball as hard as you can so that it only comes back to you if it doesn’t bounce?

Ans: Throw the ball directly into the air.

11. Imagine you are in a room full of water. There are no windows or doors. How do you get out?

Ans: Stop imagining.

12. What do the numbers 11, 69, and 88 all have in common?

Ans: Read it the same right side up and upside down.

13. A boy is walking on the road with a doctor. Although the boy is the doctor’s son, the doctor is not his father. So who is the doctor?

Ans: The doctor is the boy’s mother.

14. Joseph and Lena are found dead on the ground with water. The windows are open, and a strong wind blows the curtains. How did they die?

Ans: Joseph and Lena were goldfish. The wind knocked over their bowl, killing them!

15. There is a hanged man in a room and only a puddle on the ground. There is nothing else around, no chair, no table, nothing. How did he hang himself?

Ans: He climbed on an ice cube and hung a rope around his neck, then the ice cube melted.

16. What goes around the wood but never goes into the wood?

Ans: The bark on a tree.

17. Beth’s mother has three daughters. One is called Lara, and the other is Sara. What is the name of the third daughter?

18. How many years are there between 5 and 5.

Ans: 9, because there is no year 0

19. The more you take, the more you leave. What are they?

Ans: Footprints.

20. If an electric train is heading east at 60 mph and there is a strong westerly wind, which way is the smoke from the train drifting?

Ans: There is no smoke coming from the electric trains.

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45 Fun and Clever Brain Teasers for Kids with Answers!

Written by Laney Kennedy

• Game Based Learning

• What brain teasers are
• The benefits of brain teasers for kids
• Math brain teasers for kids

Sometimes keeping your students engaged during a (long) school day feels like a losing battle. How do you gain their full attention while teaching the skills they need to succeed? How do you turn tough and intimidating concepts into fun, entertaining lessons that actually spark life in the classroom? 

Brain teasers for kids are a great form of game-based learning that not only entertain children but also inspire some creative thought in the classroom. People of all ages can indulge in these playful — yet challenging — activities.

And some examples of when teachers might want to use brain teasers are on a bulletin board in the classroom, as a partnered activity to start a new concept or lesson, or during a rainy day indoor recess box.

We’ve gathered 45 examples of brain teasers for kids with answers, organized by category:

Table of Contents

Language brain teasers for kids :

Riddles ; Language associations ; Lateral thinking problems.

Math brain teasers for kids :

Math riddles ;  Pattern problems ;  Prodigy.

Visual brain teasers for kids :

Spot the difference ;  Rebus puzzles ;  Optical illusions ;  Stroop effect test.

Use the list below to find the perfect brain teaser for your class!

What are brain teasers?

Before you explore our examples, you might be wondering what brain teasers actually are.

Cambridge Dictionary defines a brain teaser as “a problem for which it is hard to find the answer, especially one which people enjoy trying to solve as a game.”

Brain teasers are a type of puzzle — and as the list below reveals, they come in many different forms. Often presented as a riddle, question or activity, brain teasers require a little extra brainpower to solve.

It's important to note that if you have any English language learners in your class, brain teasers for kids might pose a challenge for them. If that's the case, they might need you to walk them through the brain teaser more closely, or you can find ones that better suit their language level.

Brain teasers for kids differ from other complex or abstract problems because they’re usually done for fun. Although you can use them to analyze problem-solving and critical thinking skills, they’re often used as an amusing activity to encourage logical and lateral thinking , or thinking “outside the box.”

45 Brain teasers for kids

We’ve compiled a list of language, math and visual brain teasers to get your students thinking. Get inspired by the examples below — including answers!

Language brain teasers for kids

When you hear the term “brain teaser,” a riddle is likely the first thing that comes to mind. Riddles are perplexing — sometimes misleading — questions or statements that require creative thought to solve.

Riddles are usually fun, and plenty of them can add some humour to your classroom.

Enjoy our list of riddles for kids below!

a) Billy’s mother had five children. The first was named Lala, the second was named Lele, the third was named Lili, the fourth was named Lolo. What was the fifth child named?

b) Choose the correct sentence: “The yolk of the egg is white” or “the yolk of the egg is white.”

c) It’s as light as a feather, but the strongest person can’t hold it for more than five minutes. What is it?

d) The more there is, the less you see. What is it?

e) What gets more wet while it dries?

f) You can find it in Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, but not in Venus or Neptune. What is it?

g) It likes food, but water kills it. What is it?

h) What’s full of holes but can still hold water?

i) Which is heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?

j) How far can a dog run into the woods?

k) You’re driving a city bus. At the first stop, three women get on. At the second stop, one woman gets off and a man gets on. At the third stop, two children get on. The bus is blue and it’s raining outside in December. What colour is the bus driver’s hair?

l) There are three houses. One is red, one is blue and one is white. If the red house is to the left of the house in the middle, and the blue house is to the right of the house in the middle, where’s the white house?

m) It’s at the center of gravity and you can find it in Venus, but not Mars. What is it?

n) What goes on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening?  (This is from the classic myth,  Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx )

o) What travels faster: heat or cold?

p) A man was walking in the rain in the middle of nowhere without a coat or an umbrella. He got soaked, but not a single hair on his head was wet. How can this be?

q) A cowboy rode into town on Friday. He stayed in town for three days and rode back out on Friday. How is this possible?

b) Neither. Egg yolks are yellow, not white!

f) The letter “R”

h) A sponge

i) Neither. Both weigh a pound!

j) Halfway. Once it reaches halfway, it’s running  out  of the woods.

k) Whatever colour your hair is. Remember, you’re driving the bus!

l) In Washington, D.C.

m) The letter “V”

n) A human. The times of day represent stages of human life. At the beginning of life, a baby crawls on four “feet.” As a person gets older, they walk on two feet. Later in life, a person will walk on three “feet” (two feet, plus a cane to help them walk).

o) Heat travels faster because you can catch a cold!

p) He was bald.

q) The horse’s name was Friday.

As a bonus, use these riddles to challenge preconceived notions and get students thinking about natural bias .

a) Two boxers are in a match scheduled for 12 rounds. (Pure boxing only - no kicking, UFC takedowns, or anything else). One of the boxers gets knocked out after only six rounds, yet no man throws a punch. How is this possible?

b) A father and son have a car accident and both are very injured. They are taken to separate hospitals for treatment. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon says, “I can’t do this surgery…. this boy is my son!” How is this possible?

a) The two boxers are women.

b) The surgeon is the boy’s mother.

2. Language associations

These brain teasers for kids explore the complexities of the English language. Use them to boost student knowledge of sounds, words, spelling, categorization and more.a)  Word association : find a word that associates with the following sets of words.

• Cake, swiss, cottage
• Glasses, screen, day
• Cream, cube, cap
• Knife, fly, cup

b) Find the mystery word . Replace the third letter of each word with a new letter to create a different word. When read vertically, the new letters will reveal the mystery word.

For example, the word MA K E could become MA R E, MA L E, MA T E and so on. It’s your job to figure out which one works to create the mystery word. 

Hint: It’s something you’ll find outside.

c) Find rhyming pairs . Unscramble the words below so that each pair of words rhymes.

• RBAE & HREAS
• WNROED & UTRHNDE
• TUGHAT & HBTUGO
• ODULC & ODOG

Mystery word: FLOWER

• BEAR (or BARE) & SHARE
• WONDER & THUNDER
• TAUGHT & BOUGHT
• COULD & GOOD

You can also use printable brain teasers for kids like this one:

Image source: Spelling Words Well

Answer: The “happy word” is SMILE.

3. Lateral thinking problems

Lateral thinking problems require creative thinking with an indirect approach.

These questions require logic and careful thought to solve. The most notable example of a lateral thinking problem is the classic Monty Hall problem .

Here are two examples of lateral thinking problems kids can try to solve.

a) The river crossing problem

Image source: Popular Mechanics

A farmer is travelling with a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans. During his journey, he comes across a river with a boat to cross it.

The farmer can only fit one thing in the boat with him at a time. If left alone together, the fox will eat the goose or the goose will eat the beans. How does the farmer get everything across the river safely?

b) The light bulb problem

There are three light switches outside of a room-- labeled number one, number two, and number three. The door to the room is closed and you can’t see in. All three switches are off.

You need to figure out which switch belongs to which bulb. You can use the switches however you want to, but can only enter the room once. How do you do it?

a) Here’s the step-by-step solution:

• The farmer brings the goose across the river first (if he leaves the goose alone, it will either eat the beans or be eaten by the fox).
• The farmer brings either the fox or the beans across and leaves the other one alone.
• Now the farmer has two items on the other side of the river, including the goose. If he leaves the goose again, the same problem will occur. So, the farmer must bring the goose back to the other side.
• The farmer brings the other item back (either the fox or the beans) and leaves the goose alone again. The fox and the beans are now on the other side of the river.
• The farmer returns and brings the goose across the river again.

b) Turn on the first switch and leave it on. Turn on the second switch for a few minutes, and then turn it off again. When you enter the room, one light bulb will be on. You’ll know it goes with switch one because you turned it on. Another bulb will be hot. You’ll know that goes with switch two because it was on for a little while. The bulb that’s off and cold goes with switch three because you didn’t touch it.

Like math puzzles , these brain teasers for kids can increase engagement with math content and inspire your students to work on math concepts and problems outside of regular lessons.

1. Math riddles

These riddles are just as amusing as the ones above, but they’re math-focused . Use them to give students some extra math practice and encourage resourceful thinking.

Math riddles

a) Divide 30 by ½ and add 10. What’s the answer?

b) A clerk at the butcher shop is six feet tall and wears size 10 shoes. What does he weigh?

c) A farmer has 19 sheep on his land. One day, a big storm hits and all but seven run away. How many sheep does the farmer have left?

d) Your sock drawer only contains 18 white socks and 18 blue socks. How many times do you need to reach inside the drawer and take out a sock to guarantee a matching pair?

e) You planted sunflower seeds in your back garden. Every day, the number of flowers doubles. If it takes 52 days for the flowers to fill the garden, how many days would it take for them to fill half the garden?

f) Using only addition, how can you use eight eights to get the number 1,000?

g) When Ashley was 15, her mother was 37. Now, her mother is twice her age. How old is Ashley?

a) It's 70. You’re dividing 30 by ½, not by two. Thirty divided by ½ is the same thing as multiplying it by two, which is 60. Plus 10 makes 70!

b) Meat. He works at the butcher shop, so he weighs meat for a living.

c) Seven. The riddle says  all but seven  run away, meaning there are seven left who didn’t.

d) Three times. On the third time, you’ll get either a white or a blue sock to match with one of the other two you’ve already grabbed.

e) It would take 51 days. If the number of flowers doubles every day, half the garden would be full the day before, on the 51st day.

f) 888 +88 +8 +8 +8

g) Ashley is 22. Her mother is 22 years older, so when Ashley is 22, she’s now half her mother’s age.

2. Pattern problems

These questions require students to identify a pattern before they can answer a particular question. Kids must use creative and logical thinking to find the answers.

4 + 4 = 168

5 + 5 = 2510.

b) What makes this number unique: 8,549,176,320?

c) Solve the pattern puzzle below. Find the missing number to replace the question mark.

Image source: Genius Puzzles

d) Solve the following:

Image source: AOL

a) The missing number is 3612. The answer is the number multiplied by itself and then the number added to itself. Six multiplied by six is 36, and six plus six is 12.

b) It contains each one-digit number, zero through nine, listed in alphabetical order.

c) The missing number is 17. Each number in the circle is the sum of the numbers in the opposite quadrant. In this case, the numbers are eight and nine — added together makes 17.

d) The answer is 14 (or 16), if you’re on the other side of the debate .

3. Prodigy Math Game

This math activity is a bit different from others on the list. It’s not a traditional brain teaser, but it can also be used as a fun, skill-building alternative to traditional math class.

Prodigy is a game-based learning platform that takes your students on an online fantasy adventure while they answer standards-aligned math questions. It’s engaging and effective at teaching necessary skills. 

Prodigy's free teacher tools help you differentiate learning, send assessments in-game and even collect student insights!

Visual brain teasers for kids

1. spot the difference.

This ever-popular activity might remind you of your own childhood — and kids still love it! Spot the difference puzzles require lots of deduction and attention to detail.

Here’s an example of a printable spot the difference activity.

Image source: Tim’s Printables

2. Rebus puzzles

A rebus is a visual word puzzle that uses lateral thinking to find its intended meaning. The word or phrase is depicted with a visual illustration, including letters and words. Students must think creatively to figure out the meaning from the clues they’re given. 

Image source: Wikipedia

Image source: Stack Exchange

a) Top secret

b) Think outside the box

Visit the link below if you want more fun rebus puzzles for your students:

3. Optical illusions

Get tricky with your students! Optical illusions use visual tricks that alter the perception of what you’re really seeing. Students will love trying to figure out what’s really going on in these examples.

a) How many legs does the elephant have?

Image source: Optics For Kids

b) Are the two squares different colours?

Image source: Brain Den

b) They’re exactly the same colour. If you place your finger over the spot where the squares meet, you can see they’re the same. Try this impossible paper puzzle if you want a more hands-on optical illusion. You can make one to show your class, then have students make their own as a fun brain teaser to show friends and family.

4. Stroop effect test

The Stroop effect was discovered in the 1930s by John Ridley Stroop. During the test, you’re given a list of colour names, with each word being a different colour than what they describe.

The test involves saying the colour of a word, rather than reading the word itself. Your mind must process the two conflicting pieces of information, which slows down reaction speed and requires careful thought to get through.

Image source: The Crafty Classroom

Benefits of brain teasers for kids

You know your students enjoy them, but did you know there are plenty of additional reasons to make brain teasers a regular activity in the classroom?

A study on the attention spans of six-year-olds found children who were given brain teasers were more attentive than those who were not — showing brain teasers were effective at boosting children’s attention spans.   

Brain teasers for kids can also:

• Strengthen problem solving and critical thinking skills
• Encourage lateral thinking and build new perspectives
• Improve cognitive abilities like memory and processing speed
• Inspire teamwork and communication
• Engage students and motivate them to learn
• Provide necessary breaks from traditional class work

How to use brain teasers in the classroom

In addition to their many learning advantages, brain teasers are a great way to break up the day and engage your students. Here are just a few ways you can use brain teasers for kids as a teaching strategy and maximize the benefits in your classroom:

• Engagement-boosting activity before or after lessons
• Bonus questions in assignments and tests
• Optional “free time” activity
• Encourage team building — split students into groups to solve them together
• Supplement lessons — choose brain teasers about the subject you’re teaching

Final thoughts on brain teasers for kids

No matter what subject or skill you want to focus on, a brain teaser is a great addition to traditional teaching methods. Plus, it’s something students will actually be excited to do.

Remember that brain teaser are designed to be fun for kids. it’s not about finding the right answer, but the mental exercise they get from trying to find the solution.

Use any of the brain teasers in this list whenever you need a boost of energy in your classroom. Bonus points if you can stump any adults!

Create or log in to your free teacher account on Prodigy – a game-based learning platform for math that’s easy to use for educators and students alike. Aligned with standards across the English-speaking world, it’s used by more than a million teachers and 90 million students.

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How Many of these 25 Brain Teasers Can You Solve?

1. THE POLE-CLIMBING SLOTH

A slippery sloth climbs six feet up a utility pole during the day, then slides back down five feet during the night. If the pole is 30 feet high and the sloth starts from the ground (zero feet), how many days does it take the sloth to reach the top of the pole?

Answer : 25 days. The math here boils down to a net gain of one foot per day, along with a threshold (24 feet at the beginning of a day) that must be attained so that the sloth can get to the 30-foot mark within a given day. After 24 days and 24 nights, the sloth is 24 feet up. On that 25th day, the sloth scrambles up six feet, attaining the 30-foot top of the pole. Left to the reader is a motivation for the sloth to attempt this feat in the first place. Perhaps there is something tasty atop the pole?

(Adapted from a brain teaser by Carl Proujan.)

2. THE PIRATE RIDDLE

A group of five pirates have to divide up their bounty of 100 coins, as described in the video below. The captain gets to propose a distribution plan, and all five of the pirates vote "yarr" or "nay" on the proposal. If a majority votes "nay," the captain walks the plank. The pirates are arranged in order, and vote in that order: the captain, Bart, Charlotte, Daniel, and Eliza. If a majority vote "nay" and the captain walks the plank, the captain's hat goes to Bart, and the process repeats down the line, with a series of proposals, votes, and other acceptance or plank-walking.

How can the captain stay alive, while getting as much gold as possible? (In other words, what is the optimal amount of gold the captain should offer to each pirate, himself included, in his proposal?) Watch the video below for all the rules.

Answer : The captain should propose that he keep 98 coins, distribute one coin each to Charlotte and Eliza, and offer nothing to Bart and Daniel. Bart and Daniel will vote nay, but Charlotte and Eliza have done the math and vote yarr, knowing that the alternative would get them even less booty.

3. THE HIKER'S DILEMMA

A hiker comes across an intersection where three roads cross. He looks for the sign indicating the direction to his destination city. He finds that the pole carrying three city names and arrows pointing to them has fallen. He picks it up, considers it, and pops it back into place, pointing out the correct direction for his destination. How did he do it?

Answer : He knew which city he had just come from. He pointed that arrow back toward his origin point, which oriented the signs properly for his destination and a third city.

(Adapted from a brain teaser by Jan Weaver.)

4. THE PASSCODE RIDDLE

In the video below, the rules of this riddle are laid out. Here's a snippet: Three team members are imprisoned, and one is allowed the opportunity to escape by facing a challenge. Given perfect logical skills, how can the remaining two team members listen in on what the chosen team member does, and infer the three-digit passcode to get them out?

Answer : The passcode is 2-2-9, for hallway 13.

5. COUNTING BILLS

I had a wad of money in my pocket. I gave half away and of what remained, I spent half. Then, I lost five dollars. That left me with just five bucks. How much money did I start with?

Answer : 40 dollars.

(Adapted from a brain teaser by Charles Booth-Jones.)

6. THE AIRPLANE FUEL RIDDLE

Professor Fukanō plans to circumnavigate the world in his new airplane, as shown in the video below. But the plane's fuel tank doesn't hold enough for the trip—in fact, it holds only enough for half the trip. Fukanō has two identical support planes, piloted by his assistants Fugori and Orokana. The planes can transfer fuel in midair, and they must all take off from and land at the same airport on the equator.

How can the three cooperate and share fuel so that Fukanō gets all the way around the world and nobody crashes? (Check the video for more details.)

Answer : All three planes took off at noon, flying west, fully loaded with fuel (180 kiloliters each). At 12:45, each plane has 135 kl remaining. Orokana gives 45 kl to each of the other two planes, then heads back to the airport. At 14:15, Fugori gives another 45 kl to the professor, then heads back to the airport. At 15:00, Orokana flies east , effectively flying toward the professor around the globe. At precisely 16:30, Orokana gives him 45 kl and flips around, now flying alongside the professor. Meanwhile, Fugori takes off and heads for the pair. He meets them at 17:15 and transfers 45 kl to each plane. All three planes now have 45 kl and make it back to the airport.

7. THE HAYSTACK PROBLEM

A farmer has a field with six haystacks in one corner, a third as many in another corner, twice as many in a third corner, and five in the fourth corner. While piling the hay together in the center of the field, the farmer let one of the stacks get scattered all over the field by the wind. How many haystacks did the farmer end up with?

Answer : Just one. The farmer had piled them all up the middle, remember? 

8. THE THREE ALIENS RIDDLE

In this video riddle, you have crashed landed on a planet with three alien overlords named Tee, Eff, and Arr. There are also three artifacts on the planet, each matching a single alien. To appease the aliens, you need to match up the artifacts with the aliens—but you don't know which alien is which.

You are allowed to ask three yes-or-no questions, each addressed to any one alien. You can choose to ask the same alien multiple questions, but you don't have to.

It gets more complex, though, and this wickedly tricky riddle is best explained (both its problem and its solution) by watching the video above.

9. THE FARMER'S WILL

One day, a farmer decided to do some estate planning. He sought to apportion his farmland among his three daughters. He had twin daughters, as well as a younger daughter. His land formed a 9-acre square. He wanted the eldest daughters to get equally sized pieces of land, and the younger daughter to get a smaller piece. How can he divide up the land to accomplish this goal?

Answer : Shown above are three possible solutions. In each, the box marked 1 is a perfect square for one twin, and the two sections marked 2 combine to make a square of the same size for the second twin. The area marked 3 is a small perfect square for the youngest child.

In my hand I have two American coins that are currently minted. Together, they total 55 cents. One isn't a nickel. What are the coins?

Answer : A nickel and a 50-cent piece. (Lately the U.S. 50-cent piece features John F. Kennedy.)

11. THE BRIDGE RIDDLE

A student, a lab assistant, a janitor, and an old man need to cross a bridge to avoid being eaten by zombies, as shown in the video below. The student can cross the bridge in one minute, the lab assistant takes two minutes, the janitor takes five minutes, and the professor takes 10 minutes. The group only has one lantern, which needs to be carried on any trip across. The zombies arrive in 17 minutes, and the bridge can only hold two people at a time. How can you get across in the time allotted, so you can cut the rope bridge and prevent the zombies from stepping on the bridge and/or eating your brains? (See the video for more details!)

Answer : The student and lab assistant go together first, and the student returns, putting three minutes total on the clock. Then, the professor and the janitor take the lantern and cross together, taking 10 minutes, putting the total clock at 13 minutes. The lab assistant grabs the lantern, crosses in two minutes, then the student and lab assistant cross together just in the nick of time—a total of 17 minutes.

12. LITTLE NANCY ETTICOAT

Here's a nursery rhyme riddle:

Little Nancy Etticoat In her white petticoat With a red nose— The longer she stands The shorter she grows

Given this rhyme, what is "she?"

Answer : A candle.

(Adapted from a brain teaser by J. Michael Shannon.)

13. THE GREEN-EYED LOGIC PUZZLE

In the green-eyed logic puzzle, there is an island of 100 perfectly logical prisoners who have green eyes—but they don't know that. They have been trapped on the island since birth, have never seen a mirror, and have never discussed their eye color.

On the island, green-eyed people are allowed to leave, but only if they go alone, at night, to a guard booth, where the guard will examine eye color and either let the person go (green eyes) or throw them in the volcano (non-green eyes). The people don't know their own eye color; they can never discuss or learn their own eye color; they can only leave at night; and they are given only a single hint when someone from the outside visits the island. That's a tough life!

One day, a visitor comes to the island. The visitor tells the prisoners: "At least one of you has green eyes." On the 100th morning after, all the prisoners are gone, all having asked to leave on the night before. How did they figure it out?

Watch the video for a visual explanation of the puzzle and its solution.

Answer : Each person can't be sure whether they have green eyes. They can only deduce this fact by observing the behavior of the other members of the group. If each person looks at the group and sees 99 others with green eyes, then logically speaking, they must wait 100 nights to give the others opportunities to stay or leave (and for each to make that calculation independently). By the 100th night, using inductive reasoning, the entire group has offered every person in the group an opportunity to leave, and can figure that it's safe to go.

14. THE NUMBER ROW

The numbers one through 10, below, are listed in an order. What is the rule that causes them to be in this order?

8 5 4 9 1 7 6 10 3 2

Answer : The numbers are ordered alphabetically, based on their English spelling: eight, five, four, nine, one, seven, six, ten, three, two.

15. THE COUNTERFEIT COIN PUZZLE

In the video below, you must find a single counterfeit coin among a dozen candidates. You're allowed the use of a marker (to make notes on the coins, which doesn't change their weight), and just three uses of a balance scale. How can you find the one counterfeit—which is slightly lighter or heavier than the legitimate coins—among the set?

Answer : First, divide the coins into three equal piles of four. Put one pile on each side of the balance scale. If the sides balance (let's call this Case 1), all eight of those coins are real and the fake must be in the other pile of four. Mark the legitimate coins with a zero (circle) using your marker, take three of them, and weigh against three of the remaining unmarked coins. If they balance, the remaining unmarked coin is counterfeit. If they don't, make a different mark (the video above suggests a plus sign for heavier, minus for lighter) on the three new coins on the scale. Test two of these coins on the scale (one on each side)—if they have plus marks, the heavier of those tested will be the fake. If they have minus marks, the lighter is the fake. (If they balance, the coin not tested is the fake.) For Case 2, check out the video.

16. THE ESCALATOR RUNNER

Each step of an escalator is 8 inches taller than the previous step. The total vertical height of the escalator is 20 feet. The escalator moves upward one half step per second. If I step on the lowest step at the moment it is level with the lower floor, and run up at a rate of one step per second, how many steps do I take to reach the upper floor? (Note: Do not include the steps taken to step on and off the escalator.)

Answer : 20 steps. To understand the math, take a period of two seconds. Within that two seconds, I run up two steps on my own power, and the escalator lifts me the height of an extra step, for a total of three steps—this could also be expressed as 3 times 8 inches, or two feet. Therefore, over 20 seconds I reach the upper floor having taken 20 steps.

17. A RIVER CROSSING PUZZLE

In the video riddle below, three lions and three wildebeest are stranded on the east bank of a river and need to reach the west. A raft is available, which can carry a maximum of two animals at a time and needs at least one animal onboard to row it across. If the lions ever outnumber the wildebeest on either side of the river (including the animals in the boat if it's on that side), the lions will eat the wildebeest.

Given these rules, how can all the animals make the crossing and survive?

Answer : There are two optimal solutions. Let's take one solution first. In the first crossing, one of each animal goes from east to west. In the second crossing, one wildebeest returns from west to east. Then on the third crossing, two lions cross from east to west. One lion returns (west to east). On crossing five, two wildebeest cross from east to west. On crossing six, one lion and one wildebeest return from west to east. On crossing seven, two wildebeest go from east to west. Now all three wildebeest are on the west bank, and the sole lion on the west bank rafts back to the east. From there (crossings eight through eleven), lions simply ferry back and forth, until all the animals make it.

For the other solution, consult the video.

18. THE THREE WATCHES

I am marooned on an island with three watches, all of which were set to the correct time before I got stuck here. One watch is broken and doesn't run at all. One runs slow, losing one minute every day. The final watch runs fast, gaining one minute every day.

After being marooned for a moment, I begin to worry about timekeeping. Which watch is most likely to show the correct time if I glance at the watches at any particular moment? Which would be least likely to show the correct time?

Answer : We know that the stopped watch must tell the correct time twice a day—every 12 hours. The watch that loses one minute per day will not show the correct time until 720 days into its cycle of time loss (60 minutes in an hour times 12 hours), when it will momentarily be exactly 12 hours behind schedule. Similarly, the watch that gains one minute a day is also wrong until 720 days after its journey into incorrectness, when it will be 12 hours ahead of schedule. Because of this, the watch that doesn't run at all is most likely to show the correct time. The other two are equally likely to be incorrect.

19. EINSTEIN'S RIDDLE

In this riddle, erroneously attributed to Albert Einstein, you're presented with a series of facts and must deduce one fact that's not presented. In the case of the video below, a fish has been kidnapped. There are five identical-looking houses in a row (numbered one through five), and one of them contains the fish.

Watch the video for the various bits of information about the occupants of each house, the rules for deducing new information, and figure out where that fish is hiding! (Note: You really need to watch the video to understand this one, and the list of clues is helpful too.)

Answer : The fish is in House 4, where the German lives.

20. MONKEY MATH

Three castaways and a monkey are marooned together on a tropical island. They spend a day collecting a large pile of bananas, numbering between 50 and 100. The castaways agree that the next morning the three of them will divide up the bananas equally among them.

During the night, one of the castaways wakes up. He fears that the others might cheat him, so he takes his one-third share and hides it. Since there is one banana more than a quantity which could be divided equally into thirds, he gives the extra banana to the monkey and goes back to sleep.

Later in the night, a second castaway awakes and repeats the same behavior, plagued by the same fear. Again, he takes one-third of the bananas in the pile and again the quantity is one greater than would allow an even split into thirds, so he hands the extra banana to the monkey and hides his share.

Still later, the final castaway gets up and repeats the exact same procedure, unaware that the other two have already done it. Yet again, he takes a third of the bananas and ends up with one extra, which he gives to the monkey. The monkey is most pleased.

When the castaways meet in the morning to divide the banana loot, they all see that the pile has shrunk considerably, but say nothing—they're each afraid of admitting their nighttime banana thievery. They divide the remaining bananas three ways, and end up with one extra for the monkey.

Given all this, how many bananas were there in the original pile? (Note: There are no fractional bananas in this problem. We are always dealing with whole bananas.)

Answer : 79. Note that if the pile were bigger, the next possible number that would meet the criteria above would be 160—but that's outside the scope listed in the second sentence ("between 50 and 100") of the puzzle.

21. THE VIRUS RIDDLE

In the video below, a virus has gotten loose in a lab. The lab is a single story building, built as a 4x4 grid of rooms, for a total of 16 rooms—15 of which are contaminated. (The entrance room is still safe.) There's an entrance at the northwest corner and an exit at the southeast corner. Only the entrance and exit rooms are connected to the outside. Each room is connected to its adjacent rooms by airlocks. Once you enter a contaminated room, you must pull a self-destruct switch, which destroys the room and the virus within it—as soon as you leave for the next room. You cannot re-enter a room after its switch has been activated.

If you enter via the entrance room and exit via the exit room, how can you be sure to decontaminate the entire lab? What route can you take? See the video for a great visual explanation of the problem and the solution.

Answer : The key lies in the entrance room, which is not contaminated and which you may therefore re-enter after exiting it. If you enter that room, move one room to the east (or the south) and decontaminate it, then re-enter the entrance room and destroy it on your way to the next room. From there, your path becomes clear—you actually have four options to complete the path, which are shown in the video above. (Sketching this one on paper is an easy way to see the routes.)

22. THE IN-LAW CONUNDRUM

According to puzzle book author Carl Proujan, this one was a favorite of author Lewis Carroll.

The prime minister is planning a dinner party, but he wants it to be small. He doesn't like crowds. He plans to invite his father's brother-in-law, his brother's father-in-law, his father-in-law's brother, and his brother-in-law's father.

If the relationships in the prime minister's family happened to be arranged in the most optimal manner, what would be the minimum possible number of guests be at the party? Note that we should assume that cousin marriages are permitted.

Answer : One. It is possible, through some complex paths in the prime minister's family, to get the guest list down to one person. Here's what must be true: The PM's mother has two brothers. Let's call them brother 1 and brother 2. The PM also has a brother who married the daughter of brother 1, a cousin. The PM also has a sister who married the son of brother 1. The host himself is married to the daughter of brother 2. Because of all this, brother 1 is the PM's father's brother-in-law, the PM's brother's father-in-law, the PM's father-in-law's brother, and the PM's brother-in-law's father. Brother 1 is the sole guest at the party.

23. THE PRISONER BOXES RIDDLE

In the video, ten band members have had their musical instruments randomly placed in boxes marked with pictures of musical instruments. Those pictures may or may not match up with the contents.

Each member gets five shots at opening boxes, trying to find their own instrument. Then, they must close the boxes. They're not allowed to communicate about what they find. If the entire band fails to find their instruments, they'll all be fired. The odds of them randomly guessing their way through this is one in 1024. But the drummer has an idea that will radically increase their odds of success, to more than 35 percent. What's his idea?

Answer : The drummer told everyone to first open the box with the picture of their instrument. If their instrument is inside, they're done. If not, the band member observes what instrument is found, then opens the box with that instrument's picture on it—and so forth. Watch the video for more on why this works mathematically.

24. S-N-O-W-I-N-G

One snowy morning, Jane awoke to find that her bedroom window was misty with condensation. She drew the word "SNOWING" on it with her finger. Then she crossed out the letter N, turning it into another English word: "SOWING." She continued this way, removing one letter at a time, until there was just one letter remaining, which is itself a word. What words did Jane make, and in what order?

Answer : Snowing, sowing, owing, wing, win, in, I.

(Adapted from a brain teaser by Martin Gardner.)

25. THE MYSTERY STAMPS

While on vacation on the island of Bima, I visited the post office to send some packages home. The currency on Bima is called the pim, and the postmaster told me that he only had stamps of five different values, though these values are not printed on the stamps. Instead, the stamps have colors.

The stamps were black, red, green, violet, and yellow, in descending order of value. (Thus the black stamps had the highest denomination and yellow the lowest.)

One package required 100 pims worth of stamps, and the postmaster handed me nine stamps: five black stamps, one green stamp, and three violet stamps.

The other two packages required 50 pims worth each; for those, the postmaster handed me two different sets of nine stamps. One set comprised one black stamp and two each of the other colors. The other set was five green stamps, and one each of the other colors.

What would be the smallest number of stamps needed to mail a 50-pim package, and what colors would they be?

Answer : Two black stamps, one red stamp, one green stamp, and one yellow stamp. (It may help to write out the stamp formulas given above using the various b, r, g, v, and y. Because we know that b > r > g > v > y, and we have three described cases, we can do some algebra to arrive at values for each stamp. Black stamps are worth 18 pim, red are worth 9, green are worth 4, violet are worth 2, and yellow are worth 1.)

(Adapted from a brain teaser by Victor Bryant and Ronald Postill.)

Sources: Brain Teasers by Jan Weaver; Brain Teasers & Mind Benders by Charles Booth-Jones; Riddles and More Riddles by J. Michael Shannon; Brain Teasers Galore: Puzzles, Quizzes, and Crosswords from Science World Magazine , edited by Carl Proujan; The Arrow Book of Brain Teasers by Martin Gardner; The Sunday Times Book of Brain Teasers , edited by Victor Bryant and Ronald Postill.

20 Tough Riddles for Adults That Will Have You Scratching Your Head

Put your logic and math skills to the test. No cheating!

So go grab a pencil and a piece of scratch paper and prepare to rip your hair out (and we really do mean that in the best way possible). When you think you’ve got the right answer, click the link at the bottom of each riddle to find the solution. Got it wrong? No worries, you have 19 other riddles to test out.

Navigate Through Our Riddles:

Puzzmo / The King’s Orders / How Many Eggs? / The Gold Chain / Pickleball / Circuit Breaker / Two Trains, Two Grandmas / Ant Math / Peppermint Patty / Great American Rail Trail / A Cruel SAT Problem / Movie Stars Cross a River / Tribute to a Math Genius / One Belt, One Earth / Elbow Tapping / Whiskey Problem / Doodle Problem / Stumping Scientists / What ’ s On Her Forehead? / Keanu for President / Who Opened the Lockers?

Riddle No. 1: The King’s Orders Make for One Hell of a Brain Teaser

Difficulty: easy.

King Nupe of the kingdom Catan dotes on his two daughters so much that he decides the kingdom would be better off with more girls than boys, and he makes the following decree: All child-bearing couples must continue to bear children until they have a daughter!

But to avoid overpopulation, he makes an additional decree: All child-bearing couples will stop having children once they have a daughter! His subjects immediately begin following his orders.

After many years, what’s the expected ratio of girls to boys in Catan?

The likelihood of each baby born being a girl is, of course, 50 percent.

Ready for the solution? Click here to see if you’re right .

Riddle No. 2: How Many Eggs Does This Hen Lay?

This problem is in honor of my dad, Harold Feiveson. It’s due to him that I love math puzzles, and this is one of the first problems (of many) that he gave me when I was growing up.

A hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half. How many eggs does one hen lay in one day?

Riddle No. 3: The Gold Chain Math Problem Is Deceptively Simple

Difficulty: moderate.

You’re rummaging around your great grandmother’s attic when you find five short chains each made of four gold links. It occurs to you that if you combined them all into one big loop of 20 links, you’d have an incredible necklace. So you bring it into a jeweler, who tells you the cost of making the necklace will be $10 for each gold link that she has to break and then reseal.

How much will it cost?

Riddle No. 4: Try to Solve This Pickleball Puzzle

Difficulty: 🚨hard🚨.

Kenny, Abby, and Ned got together for a round-robin pickleball tournament, where, as usual, the winner stays on after each game to play the person who sat out that game. At the end of their pickleball afternoon, Abby is exhausted, having played the last seven straight games. Kenny, who is less winded, tallies up the games played:

Kenny played eight games

Abby played 12 games

Ned played 14 games

Who won the fourth game against whom?

How many total games were played?

Riddle No. 5: Our Circuit Breaker Riddle Is Pure Evil. Sorry.

The circuit breaker box in your new house is in an inconvenient corner of your basement. To your chagrin, you discover none of the 100 circuit breakers is labeled, and you face the daunting prospect of matching each circuit breaker to its respective light. (Suppose each circuit breaker maps to only one light.)

To start with, you switch all 100 lights in the house to “on,” and then you head down to your basement to begin the onerous mapping process. On every trip to your basement, you can switch any number of circuit breakers on or off. You can then roam the hallways of your house to discover which lights are on and which are off.

What is the minimum number of trips you need to make to the basement to map every circuit breaker to every light?

The solution does not involve either switching on or off the light switches in your house or feeling how hot the lightbulbs are. You might want to try solving for the case of 10 unlabeled circuit breakers first.

Riddle No. 6: Two Trains. Two Grandmas. Can You Solve This Tricky Math Riddle?

Jesse’s two grandmothers want to see him every weekend, but they live on opposite sides of town. As a compromise, he tells them that every Sunday, he’ll head to the subway station nearest to his apartment at a random time of the day and will hop on the next train that arrives.

If it happens to be the train traveling north, he’ll visit his Grandma Erica uptown, and if it happens to be the train traveling south, he’ll visit his Grandma Cara downtown. Both of his grandmothers are okay with this plan, since they know both the northbound and southbound trains run every 20 minutes.

But after a few months of doing this, Grandma Cara complains that she sees him only one out of five Sundays. Jesse promises he’s indeed heading to the station at a random time each day. How can this be?

The trains always arrive at their scheduled times.

Riddle No. 7: Here’s a Really F@*#ing Hard Math Problem About Ants

Max and Rose are ant siblings. They love to race each other, but always tie, since they actually crawl at the exact same speed. So they decide to create a race where one of them (hopefully) will win.

For this race, each of them will start at the bottom corner of a cuboid, and then crawl as fast as they can to reach a crumb at the opposite corner. The measurements of their cuboids are as pictured:

If they both take the shortest possible route to reach their crumb, who will reach their crumb first? (Don’t forget they’re ants, so of course they can climb anywhere on the edges or surface of the cuboid.)

Remember: Think outside the box.

Riddle No. 8: This Peppermint Patty Riddle Is Practically Impossible

You’re facing your friend, Caryn, in a “candy-off,” which works as follows: There’s a pile of 100 caramels and one peppermint patty. You and Caryn will go back and forth taking at least one and no more than five caramels from the candy pile in each turn. The person who removes the last caramel will also get the peppermint patty. And you love peppermint patties.

Suppose Caryn lets you decide who goes first. Who should you choose in order to make sure you win the peppermint patty?

First, solve for a pile of 10 caramels.

Riddle No. 9: Can You Solve the Great American Rail-Trail Riddle?

This problem was suggested by the physicist P. Jeffrey Ungar.

Finally, the Great American Rail-Trail across the whole country is complete! Go ahead, pat yourself on the back—you’ve just installed the longest handrail in the history of the world, with 4,000 miles from beginning to end. But just after the opening ceremony, your assistant reminds you that the metal you used for the handrail expands slightly in summer, so that its length will increase by one inch in total.

“Ha!” you say, “One inch in a 4,000 mile handrail? That’s nothing!” But … are you right?

Let’s suppose when the handrail expands, it buckles upward at its weakest point, which is in the center. How much higher will pedestrians in the middle of the country have to reach in summer to grab the handrail? That is, in the figure below, what is h ? (For the purposes of this question, ignore the curvature of the Earth and assume the trail is a straight line.)

Pythagoras is a fascinating historical figure.

Riddle No. 10: This Riddle Is Like an Especially Cruel SAT Problem. Can You Find the Answer?

Amanda lives with her teenage son, Matt, in the countryside—a car ride away from Matt’s school. Every afternoon, Amanda leaves the house at the same time, drives to the school at a constant speed, picks Matt up exactly when his chess club ends at 5 p.m., and then they immediately return home together at the same constant speed. But one day, Matt isn’t feeling well, so he leaves chess practice early and starts to head home on his portable scooter.

After Matt has been scooting for an hour, Amanda comes across him in her car (on her usual route to pick him up), and they return together, arriving home 40 minutes earlier than they usually do. How much chess practice did Matt miss?

Consider the case where Amanda meets Matt exactly as she’s leaving their house.

Riddle No. 11: Can You Get These 3 Movie Stars Across the River?

Three movie stars, Chloe, Lexa, and Jon, are filming a movie in the Amazon. They’re very famous and very high-maintenance, so their agents are always with them. One day, after filming a scene deep in the rainforest, the three actors and their agents decide to head back to home base by foot. Suddenly, they come to a large river.

On the riverbank, they find a small rowboat, but it’s only big enough to hold two of them at one time. The catch? None of the agents are comfortable leaving their movie star with any other agents if they’re not there as well. They don’t trust that the other agents won’t try to poach their star.

For example, Chloe’s agent is okay if Chloe and Lexa are alone in the boat or on one of the riverbanks, but definitely not okay if Lexa’s agent is also with them. So how can they all get across the river?

There isn’t just one way to solve this problem.

Riddle No. 12: This Ludicrously Hard Riddle Is Our Tribute to a Late Math Genius. Can You Figure It Out?

On April 11, John Horton Conway , a brilliant mathematician who had an intense and playful love of puzzles and games, died of complications from COVID-19. Conway is the inventor of one of my favorite legendary problems (not for the faint of heart) and, famously, the Game of Life . I created this problem in his honor.

Carol was creating a family tree, but had trouble tracking down her mother’s birthdate. The only clue she found was a letter written from her grandfather to her grandmother on the day her mother was born. Unfortunately, some of the characters were smudged out, represented here with a “___” . (The length of the line does not reflect the number of smudged characters.)

“Dear Virginia,

Little did I know when I headed to work this Monday morning, that by evening we would have a beautiful baby girl. And on our wedding anniversary, no less! It makes me think back to that incredible weekend day, J___ 27th, 19___ , when we first shared our vow to create a family together, and, well, here we are! Happy eighth anniversary, my love.

Love, Edwin”

The question: When was Carol’s mother born?

This problem is inspired by Conway’s Doomsday Rule .

Riddle No. 13: To Solve This Twisty Math Riddle, You Just Need One Belt and One Earth

Imagine you have a very long belt. Well, extremely long, really … in fact, it’s just long enough that it can wrap snugly around the circumference of our entire planet. (For the sake of simplicity, let’s suppose Earth is perfectly round, with no mountains, oceans, or other barriers in the way of the belt.)

Naturally, you’re very proud of your belt. But then your brother, Peter, shows up—and to your disgruntlement, he produces a belt that’s just a bit longer than yours. He brags his belt is longer by exactly his height: 6 feet.

If Peter were also to wrap his belt around the circumference of Earth, how far above the surface could he suspend the belt if he pulled it tautly and uniformly?

Earth’s circumference is about 25,000 miles, or 130 million feet … but you don’t need to know that to solve this problem.

Riddle No. 14: This Elbow Tapping Riddle Is Diabolical. Good Luck Solving It.

In some future time, when the shelter-in-place bans are lifted, a married couple, Florian and Julia, head over to a bar to celebrate their newfound freedom.

They find four other couples there who had the same idea.

Eager for social contact, every person in the five couples enthusiastically taps elbows (the new handshake) with each person they haven’t yet met .

It actually turns out many of the people had known each other prior, so when Julia asks everyone how many elbows they each tapped, she remarkably gets nine different answers!

The question: How many elbows did Florian tap?

What nine answers did Julia hear?

Riddle No. 15: You’ll Need a Drink After Trying to Solve This Whisky Riddle

Alan and Claire live by the old Scottish saying, “Never have whisky without water, nor water without whisky!” So one day, when Alan has in front of him a glass of whisky, and Claire has in front of her a same-sized glass of water, Alan takes a spoonful of his whisky and puts it in Claire’s water. Claire stirs her whisky-tinted water, and then puts a spoonful of this mixture back into Alan’s whisky to make sure they have exactly the same amount to drink.

So: Is there more water in Alan’s whisky, or more whisky in Claire’s water? And does it matter how well Claire stirred?

The size of the spoon does not matter.

Riddle No. 16: The Doodle Problem Is a Lot Harder Than It Looks. Can You Solve It?

This week’s riddle is relatively simple—but sinister all the same.

The question: Can you make 100 by interspersing any number of pluses and minuses within the string of digits 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1? You can’t change the order of the digits! So what’s the least number of pluses and minuses needed to make 100?

For instance, 98 - 7 - 6 + 54 - 32 shows one way of interspersing pluses and minuses, but since it equals 107, it’s not a solution.

I call this a “doodle problem”: one that’s best worked on during meetings where you might be doodling otherwise.

You might want to start looking for solutions that use a total of seven pluses and minuses (although there are ways to use fewer).

Ready for the solution? Click here to see if you’re right.

Riddle No. 17: This Math Puzzle Stumped Every Scientist but One. Think You Can Crack It?

Difficulty: hard.

In honor of Freeman Dyson, the renowned physicist who died last month , here’s a legendary tale demonstrating his quick wit and incredible brain power.

One day, in a gathering of top scientists, one of them wondered out loud whether there exists an integer that you could exactly double by moving its last digit to its front. For instance, 265 would satisfy this if 526 were its exact double—which it isn’t.

After apparently just five seconds , Dyson responded, “Of course there is, but the smallest such number has 18 digits.”

This left some of the smartest scientists in the world puzzling over how he could have figured this out so quickly.

So given Dyson’s hint, what is the smallest such number?

My second grader has recently learned how to add a 3-digit number to itself using the classic vertical method:

18-digit numbers, of course, can be added in the same way.

Riddle No. 18: Figure Out What’s on Her Forehead

Cecilia loves testing the logic of her very logical friends Jaya, Julian, and Levi, so she announces:

“I’ll write a positive number on each of your foreheads. None of the numbers are the same, and two of the numbers add up to the third.”

She scribbles the numbers on their heads, then turns to Jaya and asks her what her number is. Jaya sees Julian has 20 on his forehead, and Levi has 30 on his. She thinks for a moment and then says, “I don’t know what my number is.” Julian pipes in, “I also don’t know my number,” and then Levi exclaims, “Me neither!” Cecilia gleefully says, “I’ve finally stumped you guys!”

“Not so fast!” Jaya says. “Now I know my number!”

What is Jaya’s number?

Jaya could be one of two numbers, but only one of those numbers would lead to Julian and Levi both not knowing their numbers. Why?

Riddle No. 19: Can You Get Keanu Reeves Elected As President?

It’s 2024, and there are five candidates running in the democratic primary: Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, Keanu Reeves, and Dwayne Johnson. (Hey, it could happen.) As usual, the first primary is in Iowa.

In an effort to overcome its embarrassment after the 2020 caucus debacle , the Iowa Democratic Party has just announced a new, foolproof way of finding the best candidate: there will be four consecutive elections.

First, candidate 1 will run against candidate 2. Next, the winner of that will run against candidate 3, then that winner will run against candidate 4, and finally the winner of that election will run against the final candidate. By the transitive property, the winner of this last election must be the best candidate ... so says the Iowa Democratic Party.

Candidate Keanu has been feeling pretty low, as he knows he is ranked near the bottom by most voters, and at the top by none. In fact, he knows the Iowa population is divided into five equal groups, and that their preferences are as follows:

Keanu is childhood friends with Bill S. Preston, Esq., the new head of the Iowa Democratic Party. Preston, confident that the order of the candidates doesn’t matter for the outcome, tells Keanu he can choose the voting order of the candidates.

So what order should Keanu choose?

How would Keanu fare in one-to-one races against each candidate?

Riddle No. 20: Who Opened All These Damn Lockers?

There are 100 lockers that line the main hallway of Chelm High School. Every night, the school principal makes sure all the lockers are closed so that there will be an orderly start to the next day. One day, 100 mischievous students decide that they will play a prank.

The students all meet before school starts and line up. The first student then walks down the hallway, and opens every locker. The next student follows by closing every other locker (starting at the second locker). Student 3 then goes to every third locker (starting with the third) and opens it if it’s closed, and closes it if it’s open. Student 4 follows by opening every fourth locker if it’s closed and closing it if it’s open. This goes on and on until Student 100 finally goes to the hundredth locker. When the principal arrives later in the morning, which lockers does she find open?

Make sure you pay attention to all of the factors.

Laura Feiveson is an economist for the government, a storyteller, and a lifelong enthusiast of math puzzles.  She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two daughters. 

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Puzzles Questions

What are puzzles.

Puzzle in simple terms is defined as a problem designed to test ingenuity or knowledge. They have become an integral part of few competitive exams and entrance tests. They are devised with intent to test the knowledge of to-be-solver.

What are different types of puzzles?

There are different types, which are devised with a specific intent to test a person’s ability to interpret and solve the problem. Different type of puzzles are :

• Missing letter

What exams have puzzles?

Almost every competitive exams have puzzles. They are most commonly found in competitive exams like : CAT, MAT, XAT, Bank P.O.s, AIEEE, GATE, TOEFL, GRE, and GATE etc. In these exams, mostly arithmetic, math, number, and logic puzzles.

How to solve puzzles?

To solve, one needs to interpret the questions properly and understand the sequence in the problem Is designed. By understanding the sequence, it becomes easier to solve a problem. Understanding the sequence of a puzzle requires strong logical ability and a creative thought pattern. The key is to solve as many different puzzles as possible to improve the thought process and gain expertise over different ways of solving a problem.

Clock puzzles

Logic puzzles, math puzzles, missing letters puzzles, number puzzles, word puzzles.

How many times in a day, are the hands of a clock in straight line but opposite in direction?

The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever?

If a giraffe has two eyes, a monkey has two eyes, and an elephant has two eyes, how many eyes do we have?

Here in the question, it is asked how many Eyes We have so that means here the person who has asked the question is also including the person who is suppose to give the answer. In a clear understanding, the Conversation is happening between 2 people 1st who asked the question and 2nd to whom it has been asked, which means there are 4 eyes.

View Answer Report Error Discuss Filed Under: Logic Puzzles Exam Prep: AIEEE , Bank Exams , CAT , GATE , GRE Job Role: Analyst , Bank Clerk , Bank PO , Database Administration , IT Trainer

Crack the code & Unlock the Key ?

From all the hints given, 

only 042 satisfies and it unlocks the key.

View Answer Report Error Discuss Filed Under: Number Puzzles Exam Prep: AIEEE , Bank Exams , CAT , GATE Job Role: Bank Clerk , Bank PO

Find the missing Number?

7*6 = 4 2 9*9 = 8 1 5*3 = 1 5 6*2 = 1 2

View answer Workspace Report Error Discuss Subject: Number Puzzles

The hands of a clock point in opposite directions (in the same straight line) 11 times in every 12 hours. (Because between 5 and 7 they point in opposite directions at 6 o'clcok only).

So, in a day, the hands point in the opposite directions 22 times.

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Solve the Logical Puzzle ?

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How many squares do you see?

Number of squares in the given figure is

16 + 9 + 19 + 1 = 45.

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A clock is started at noon. By 10 minutes past 5, the hour hand has turned through:

Angle traced by hour hand in 12 hrs = 360º.

Angle traced by hour hand in 5 hrs 10 min.   i.e., 31/6 hrs  =  360 12 * 31 6 ° = 155º

One rabbit saw 6 elephants while going towards River. Every elephant saw 2 monkeys are going towards river. Every monkey holds one tortoice in their hands.

How many animals are going towards the river?

From the given data,

1 rabbit is going towards river not the six eephants. And these 6 elephants saw 2 monkeys are going towards river. Each monkey is holding 1 tortoice.

Hence, number of animals going towards river are 1 rabbit, 2 monkeys and 2 tortoice

= 1 + 2 + 2

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20 Challenging Brain Teasers with Answers

Brain teasers are puzzles or problems that are designed to stimulate and challenge the brain. They often require creative thinking, problem-solving skills, and the ability to think outside the box. Brain teasers come in various forms, including riddles, puzzles, and logic games. They are a fun way to exercise the mind and enhance cognitive abilities.

Here are 20 challenging brain teasers along with their answers. Try to solve them before checking the answers:

1. The Missing Dollar: Three people check into a hotel room that costs $30. They each contribute $10, handing $30 to the hotel clerk. Later, the hotel clerk realizes that there was a mistake, and the room only costs $25. The hotel clerk gives $5 to the bellboy and asks him to return it to the guests. However, the bellboy decides to keep $2 for himself and gives $1 back to each guest. Now, each guest has paid $9 (totalling $27) and the bellboy has kept $2, making $29. What happened to the missing dollar?

2. The Two Doors: You are in a room with two doors. One door leads to certain death, and the other door leads to freedom. There are two guards, one in front of each door. One guard always tells the truth, and the other always lies. You don’t know which guard is which, and you don’t know which door leads to freedom. You can only ask a single question to one of the guards. What do you ask to find the door to freedom?

3. The Poisoned Wine: You are a king and have 1,000 bottles of wine. One of the bottles contains poison, and anyone who drinks it will die within 24 hours. You have 10 prisoners whom you suspect might try to assassinate you. You decide to find the poisoned bottle of wine by feeding it to the prisoners. You have only 24 hours to determine which bottle is poisoned. How do you do it?

4. The Escalator: If an escalator is moving down, is it easier or harder to walk down?

5. The Lockers: There are 100 lockers in a row, all initially closed. A person walks down the row and opens every locker. Then, another person walks down the row and closes every second locker (starting from the second locker). Next, a third person walks down the row and changes the state (opens it if it’s closed or closes it if it’s open) of every third locker (starting from the third locker). This continues until 100 people have walked down the row. At the end, which lockers are open?

6. The Unfinished Statement: Can you complete the following statement: “I am the beginning of the end and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. What am I?”

7. The Three Switches: You are in a room with three light switches. Each switch controls one of three bulbs in the next room. You can’t see into the next room, and once you leave the room, you can’t come back. How can you determine which switch controls which bulb?

8. The Clock Chimes: A clock chimes 5 times in 4 seconds. How many times will it chime in 10 seconds?

9. The Two Fathers and Two Sons: A father and a son go on a fishing trip. They each catch one fish. In total, there are only three fish. How is this possible?

10. The Greenhouse: You are in a greenhouse. There are five greenhouses. In each greenhouse, there are five cats. In each cat, there are five kittens. How many legs are there in total?

11. The Man in the Bar: A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says, “Thank you,” and walks out. What happened?

12. The Train Journey: A train leaves from New York City heading to Los Angeles at 150 miles per hour. At the same time, a train leaves from Los Angeles heading to New York City at 200 miles per hour. Which train will be farther from New York City when they meet?

13. The Running Race: If you overtake the last person in a running race, what place are you in?

14. The Word That Is Spelled Incorrectly: What is the only word that is spelt incorrectly in the dictionary?

15. The Pink House : In a one-story pink house, there was a pink person, a pink cat, a pink fish, a pink computer, a pink chair, a pink table, a pink phone, a pink shower – everything was pink! What color were the stairs?

16. The Murder Mystery: A man was found murdered on Sunday morning. His wife immediately called the police. The police questioned the wife and staff and got the following alibis:

• The wife said she was sleeping.
• The cook said he was cooking breakfast.
• The gardener said he was planting seeds.
• The maid said she was getting the mail.
• The butler said he was polishing the silverware.

The police arrested the murderer immediately. Who was it?

17. Cowboy : A cowboy arrives in town on Friday, stays for three days, and then leaves on Friday. How did he do it?

18. The Deadly Party: A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?

19. The Two Men in Masks: Two men were born in the same year, on the same day, in the same city, and they have the same parents. However, they are not twins. How is this possible?

20. Bankruptcy: A man pushes his car to a hotel and tells the owner he’s bankrupt. Why?

1 . There is no missing dollar. The guests have paid a total of $27 ($25 to the hotel and $2 to the bellboy).

2 . Ask either guard, “If I were to ask the other guard which door leads to freedom, what would he say?” Then choose the opposite of the answer.

3. Label the bottles from 1 to 1,000 in binary. Feed each prisoner a mix of wine from bottles where the corresponding binary digits are 1 in their number. For example, prisoner 1 gets wine from bottles with a binary representation that has a 1 in the rightmost digit, prisoner 2 gets wine from bottles with a 1 in the second rightmost digit, and so on. If a prisoner dies, the binary representation of the bottle number will reveal the poisoned bottle.

4 . Easier. Escalators are designed to assist walking, so if it’s moving down, it reduces the effort required to walk down.

5. The lockers that are open are the perfect squares: 1, 4, 9, 16, …, 100.

6. The letter ‘E.’

7. Turn on one switch and leave it on for a few minutes. Then, turn it off and turn on another switch. Enter the room. The bulb that is on corresponds to the switch that is on. The bulb that is off and warm corresponds to the switch that was turned on and off. The bulb that is off and cool corresponds to the switch that was never turned on.

8. The clock will chime 12 times in 10 seconds.

9. The fishing party consists of a grandfather, his son, and his grandson.

10. Let’s break it down step by step:

Greenhouses : There are 5 greenhouses.

Cats in Each Greenhouse : In each greenhouse, there are 5 cats. So, there are (5 * 5 = 25) cats in total.

Kittens in Each Cat : In each cat, there are 5 kittens. So, there are (25 * 5 = 125) kittens in total.

Legs Calculation: Each cat has 4 legs , Each kitten has 4 legs.

Total Legs:

Legs of all cats: (25 * 4 = 100) legs.

Legs of all kittens: (125 * 4 = 500) legs.

Grand Total: Adding the legs of all cats and all kittens together:

(100) legs from cats

(500) legs from kittens

Total = (100 + 500 = 600) legs.

Including the person in the greenhouse, there are 600+2 = 602 legs.

So, there are 602 legs in total.

11. The man had the hiccups. The bartender scared him, causing the hiccups to stop.

12. They will be at the same distance from New York City when they meet.

13. If you overtake the last person, you take their place, so you are in the last place.

14. The word “incorrectly.”

15 . There were no stairs. It was a one-story house.

16. The maid. There is no mail on Sunday.

17. His horse was Friday.

18. The poison was in the ice. When the man drank the punch, the ice had not melted yet.

19. They are two of a set of triplets.

20. The man is playing Monopoly. He landed on a property with a hotel, couldn’t pay the rent, and declared bankruptcy.

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15 Brain Teasers That Will Put Your Mind to the Test

Looking for Brain Teaser challenges to exercise your mind? Here are 15 exciting puzzles that will test your logic and creativity. Dive into classic riddles, fun kids’ brain teasers, and tricky number puzzles.

Table of Contents

Key takeaways.

Classic brain teasers like riddles and logic puzzles challenge critical thinking and creativity, providing a mental workout.

Brain teasers for kids are both fun and educational, helping to develop cognitive abilities and quick-thinking skills.

Engaging with a community of puzzle enthusiasts through platforms like Braingle can keep brain teasers fresh and exciting while allowing users to submit, rate, and discuss puzzles.

Classic Brain Teasers

Classic brain teasers are an evergreen way to test your critical thinking skills and challenge your brain. These puzzles often include riddles, logic puzzles, and word games that push you to think outside the box and solve problems creatively. They play with logical paradoxes and require lateral thinking, making them a perfect exercise for your mind.

Let’s explore a few classic brain teasers that are sure to baffle you until you crack them. From the simplicity of a one-story house to the complexity of family roles and light switches, these puzzles will keep you engaged and entertained.

The One Story House

Imagine a house with only one story. The unique feature of this one-story house is that it lacks stairs. The riddle emphasizes recognizing that a single-story house won’t have an upstairs or downstairs.

This simple yet tricky puzzle is a great way to start your journey into classic brain teasers, just like playing monopoly can be a fun introduction to board games.

The Three Light Switches

Here’s a puzzle that involves three light switches, each corresponding to one of three bulbs in another room. To determine which switch controls which bulb, you need to manipulate the switches.

Turn on one switch and leave it on for a few minutes, then turn it off and immediately turn on another switch before entering the room. The bulb that is lit corresponds to the last switch you turned on, the bulb that is warm but not lit corresponds to the switch you turned off, and the bulb that is off and cold corresponds to the switch you never touched.

The Mustard Family

The Mustard Family riddle requires understanding family relationships to deduce who each person is. By identifying the various roles each member plays within the family, you can solve this puzzle.

This riddle serves as an enjoyable exercise in rational reasoning and deciphering familial relationships, especially when it comes to understanding those born in the same year with the same parents.

Fun Brain Teasers for Kids

Brain teasers are not only fun but also incredibly beneficial for kids. They help children develop critical thinking skills while having fun. Engaging kids with these puzzles can improve their cognitive abilities and quick-thinking skills. These fun and playful challenges are designed to be both educational and entertaining, keeping children engaged and eager to learn.

Let’s delve into some brain teasers that are ideally suited for kids. These puzzles incorporate elements of humor and surprise, making them age-appropriate and engaging. From carnival tricks to clever wordplay and strange subtractions, these riddles will keep young minds active and entertained.

Carnival Trick Riddle

The Carnival Trick Riddle leverages a clever play on words, often involving a scenario where the answer is unexpected yet simple. In this riddle, a man wins a bet at the carnival by writing the words “your exact weight” on a piece of paper, thus accurately guessing the person’s weight.

This brain teaser bolsters problem-solving abilities by pushing kids to think outside the box.

The Even Seven riddle asks, “How do you make 7 even?” The answer is to drop the ‘S’ from ‘Seven’ to get ‘Even’. This simple puzzle teaches kids about wordplay and lateral thinking, showing how removing a single letter can change the meaning entirely.

Strange Subtraction

Strange Subtraction riddles often incorporate Roman numerals to create unique and challenging brain teasers. For example, “How do you subtract 2 from 5 and get 4?” Take the letters F and E out of ‘Five’ and you’ll get IV, the Roman numeral for four.

This riddle encourages thinking outside the box and understanding different numeral systems.

Challenging Brain Teasers for Adults

For those looking for a bit more of a challenge, these brain teasers for adults are crafted to push your problem-solving capabilities and necessitate out-of-the-box thinking. They often require advanced problem-solving skills and logical thinking. Complex brain teasers like these involve lateral thinking and creative problem solving, making them perfect for a mental workout.

Let’s navigate through some challenging brain teasers designed to test your problem-solving skills. From dice with multiple eyes to surprising photographic riddles and dramatic fish tales, these puzzles will stretch your mental faculties to their limits.

Six Faces 21 Eyes

What has six faces and 21 eyes? The answer is a die (dice). Each face of the die has a different number of pips (dots), adding up to 21 eyes in total.

This classic riddle is a great example of how brain teasers can be both simple and deeply engaging.

A Woman Shoots Her Husband

A woman shoots her husband, holds him underwater for five minutes, and then hangs him up. The police are not called. This riddle describes a photographer taking a picture of her husband, developing the photo by holding it underwater, and hanging it to dry. It provides a perfect illustration of how brain teasers can manipulate language and challenge assumptions.

The Death Of Romeo And Juliet

Romeo and Juliet are fish that died when their tank fell due to vibrations from a passing train. This dramatic riddle reveals that the tragic death was actually caused by the tank falling off the shelf. It’s a great example of how brain teasers can tell a story and surprise you with an unexpected twist.

Brain Teasers That Involve Numbers

Number-based brain teasers are excellent for fostering development in mathematical reasoning and analytical problem-solving skills. Solving these numerical puzzles can significantly enhance your understanding of mathematical concepts and improve your problem-solving skills. They often include logic puzzles, sequences, and arithmetical problems designed to challenge your mathematical thinking.

Let’s examine some brain teasers that revolve around numerical puzzles. From simple puzzles about people in a room to patterns in children’s names and mysterious deaths, these riddles will test your numerical skills and logical reasoning.

There Are 10 People In A Room

In a room where there are 10 people, you might wonder how many people you need to place an apple on one person’s head. The solution to this riddle is to place the apple on one person’s head, thereby placing it ‘in’ the room with everyone. This is a straightforward yet ingenious riddle that toys with the notion of space and positioning.

A Pregnant Lady Named Her Children

A pregnant lady named her children January, February, and March. Based on this pattern, the name of the next child can be predicted as April. This riddle involves recognizing a pattern in the names of the children, making it a fun exercise in logical reasoning.

Building Riddle

A man was found dead next to a building, and the initial assumption by the police was that it was a suicide. To determine if the death was truly a suicide, one would check if the windows were closed; a suicide would likely leave the window open. The riddle hints at the possibility of murder given the absence of a suicide note or the presence of suspicious elements surrounding the death.

This riddle tests your capacity for critical thinking, attention to detail, and understanding of the matter at hand.

Picture-Based Brain Teasers

Picture-based brain teasers challenge your observation skills through visual puzzles and images. These puzzles often present an image with hidden objects or patterns that challenge the solver’s observational skills. They are perfect for those who enjoy visual challenges and want to test their attention to detail.

Let’s delve into some visually stimulating brain teasers. From changing colors of fruits to identifying sequences of cards and finding hidden objects, these puzzles will keep your eyes and brain engaged.

A Time When They Are Green A Time When They’re Brown

The riddle “A Time When They Are Green A Time When They’re Brown” refers to bananas. Bananas are green when unripe, yellow when ripe, and brown when overripe. This riddle is a great example of how observation and knowledge of everyday objects can solve a puzzle.

Three Playing Cards In A Row

This puzzle asks individuals to determine the identity of three playing cards based on a series of provided clues. The cards are identified based on specific clues:

There is a two to the right of a king

A diamond to the left of a spade

An ace to the left of a heart

A heart to the left of a spade

Logical reasoning is required to identify the correct sequence of the cards.

Identify the Object in the Picture

This challenge involves looking at a tricky image and identifying objects or patterns hidden within it. Participants need to use keen observational skills and sometimes lateral thinking to solve these image-based puzzles.

It presents an enjoyable and engaging method to test your eye for detail.

Community-Sourced Brain Teasers

One of the best ways to keep brain teasers fresh and exciting is by engaging with a community of puzzle enthusiasts. Community-sourced brain teasers offer the following benefits:

Users can submit, rate, and discuss puzzles, fostering a collaborative environment.

By participating in this community, you can challenge yourself with new puzzles.

You can contribute your own puzzles for others to solve.

Engaging with a puzzle community allows you to constantly discover and solve new brain teasers while also sharing your own creations.

Let’s discover the ways you can participate in the community of puzzle enthusiasts. From submitting your own puzzles to rating and commenting on others, and participating in weekly challenges, there are plenty of ways to engage and sharpen your mind.

Submit Your Own Brain Teaser

Braingle users can engage with a large community by submitting their own brain teasers for others to solve. To submit a brain teaser, you need to create an account, be a registered member for at least one week, and have a score of at least 250. After logging in, you can find an option to add new brain teasers under the ‘Submit’ section.

Rate and Comment on Brain Teasers

Braingle allows users to:

Rate brain teasers on a scale from 1 to 5 stars

Each brain teaser’s rating is averaged from all users’ ratings to give an overall score

Leave comments to provide feedback or discuss solutions with other users.

By rating and commenting on brain teasers, you can provide constructive feedback to the creators while nurturing a sense of community and sharing valuable answers.

Weekly Brain Teaser Challenge

Participate in Braingle’s weekly brain teaser challenges, where you can compete to solve various puzzles and climb the leaderboard. These challenges are a great way to test your skills against others and stay engaged with new and exciting puzzles every week.

Join in the fun and see how high you can rank without having to pay!

Learn more, check out 101 Brain Teasers for Adults (with Answers)

Brain teasers are a wonderful way to challenge your mind, improve your problem-solving skills, and have fun. Whether you’re tackling classic riddles, engaging in fun puzzles for kids, solving challenging brain teasers for adults, or participating in community-sourced puzzles, there’s something for everyone. Keep your brain sharp and enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes with solving these intriguing puzzles. Dive in, challenge yourself, and let the joy of problem-solving brighten your day!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are brain teasers.

Brain teasers are puzzles or riddles that require critical thinking and problem-solving skills to solve, often involving logic, wordplay, and lateral thinking.

How can brain teasers benefit children?

Brain teasers can benefit children by improving their critical thinking, problem-solving, and cognitive abilities while they enjoy solving puzzles.

Are there brain teasers that involve numbers?

Absolutely! There are plenty of brain teasers that involve numbers, and they can really help improve your mathematical reasoning and problem-solving abilities.

How can I submit my own brain teaser?

You can submit your own brain teaser by creating an account on Braingle, becoming a registered member for at least one week, and having a score of at least 250. Then, you can add new brain teasers under the ‘Submit’ section. Good luck!

What is the Weekly Brain Teaser Challenge?

The Weekly Brain Teaser Challenge on Braingle is a fun competition where you can solve puzzles and compete with others to climb the leaderboard. It’s a great way to test your skills and stay engaged with new puzzles.

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