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Other Information brain teaser-1 1. 'How quickly can you find out what is so unusual about this paragraph? It looks so ordinary that you would think that nothing is wrong with it at all, and, in fact, nothing is. But it is unusual. Why? If you study it and think about it, you may find out, but I am not going to assist you in anyway. You must do it without coaching. No doubt, if you work at it for long, it will dawn on you. Who Knows? Go to work and try your skill. Par is about half an hour.' Quimby Sereye, the editor of a local magazine, is at his wit's end. The above puzzle was submitted without an answer, and Quimby's been trying to solve it for over a week. Day and night, wherever he goes, Quimby's been studying it without success. Can you solve this perplexing problem and bring tranquility back into Quimby's life? 2. Trusting Ned Armstrong, the owner of Ned's Wonderful World of Sports, made his first sale the other day to a somewhat suspicious looking gentleman. The customer purchased a package of golf balls for $12 and paid Ned with a $20 bill. Ned was all out of singles so he went next door to the bakery to change it; then he gave the customer his purchase and $8 in change. Ten minutes later the baker came in complaining that Ned had given him a counterfeit bill. Ned took back the bogus twenty and gave the baker a $20 bill from the register. Now, the big question in Ned's mind was just how much money had he lost on his first sale? Keep in mind that the marup on a package of golf balls is 100 percent. 3. The other day Grand Slam Cooper, proprietor of the Hit & Miss Sport Shop, was checking out a new shipment of tennis balls when he noticed that each of the three crates, labeled 'Yellow Tennis Balls', 'White Tennis Balls' and 'White & Yellow Tennis Balls', was mislabeled. Being a puzzler of great renown he came up with a problem that has stumped everyone so far. It goes like this : Take one tennis ball out of anyone of the three crates without looking into the crate or into any of the other crates. With only the color of the one tennis ball to guide you, correctly label each of the crates. See if you can net the answer in ten minutes. No overtime permitted. 4. Many years ago, so the tale goes, two good old boys, Billy Bones and Pester Pew, got in an argument down at the Bucket O'Blood grog shop. It seems that Billy came in with an empty five-gallon cask and asked Pester to put four gallons of his rotgut rum in it. Unfortunately the only measure in the house was an old three-gallon pewter jug. Try as they might Pester and Billy just couldn't figure out a way to measure out exactly four gallons from the rum vat using these two receptacles and their frustration soon evolved into mayhem. If you had been there, could you have solved their problem? 5. J. Wellington Moneybags, that Prince of Gamblers, is back with an interesting betting proposition for you. He claims that 1981 $100 bills are worth more than 1980 $100 bills. Do you think that he's wrong? He's willing to wager you a $100 that he can prove it! (1) Grandpa: "My grandson is about as many days as my son is weeks, and my grandson is as many months as I am in years. My grandson, my son and I together are 160 years. Can you tell me my age in years?" (2) The 10" pizza sells for $ 4.99 at my favorite pizza store. The store claims they have a great deal on the large 12" pizza, which is specially priced at $ 6.47. What is the per cent discount the store is offering? (3) A creeper plant is climbing up and around a cylindrical tree trunk in a helical manner. The tree trunk has a height of 480 inches and a circumference of 32 inches. If the creeper covers a vertical distance of 60 inches in one complete twist around the tree trunk, what is the total length of the creeper? (4)My Dad has a miniature Pyramid of Egypt. It is 5 inches in height. Dad was invited to display it at an exhibition. Dad felt it was too small and decided to build a scaled-up model of the Pyramid out of material whose density is (1/ 9) times the density of the material used for the miniature. He did a "back-of-the-envelope" calculation to check whether the model would be big enough. If the mass (or weight) of the miniature and the scaled-up model are to be the same, how many inches in height will be the scaled-up Pyramid? Give your answer to two places of decimal. (5)A large water tank has two inlet pipes (a large one and a small one) and one outlet pipe. It takes 1 hours to fill the tank with the large inlet pipe. On the other hand, it takes 6 hours to fill the tank with the small inlet pipe. The outlet pipe allows the full tank to be emptied in 7 hours. What fraction of the tank (initially empty) will be filled in 0.98 hours if all three pipes are in operation? Give your answer to two decimal places (e.g., 0.25, 0.5, or 0.75). (6) The son of a rich bullion merchant left home on the death of his father. All he had with him was a gold chain that consisted of 126 links. He rented a place in the city center with a shop at the lower level and an apartment at the upper level. He was required to pay every week one link of the gold chain as rent for the place. The landlady told him that she wanted one link of the gold chain at the end of one week, two gold links at the end of two weeks, three gold links at the end of three weeks and so on. The son realized that he had to cut the links of the gold chain to pay the weekly rent. If the son wished to rent the place for 126 weeks, what would be the minimum number of links he would need to cut? (7) If you were to construct a 7 x 7 checkered square (i.e., a 7 x 7 chess board), how many rectangles would there be in total? You need to include squares too because a square is a special kind of rectangle. (8) Glenn and Jason each have a collection of cricket balls. Glenn said that if Jason would give him 9 of his balls they would have an equal number; but, if Glenn would give Jason 9 of his balls, Jason would have 4 times as many balls as Glenn. How many balls does Jason have? (9) Justin takes the underground train to work and uses an escalator at the railway station. If Justin runs up 7 steps of the escalator, then it takes him 42.5 seconds to reach the top of the escalator. If he runs up 15 steps of the escalator, then it takes him only 22.5 seconds to reach the top. How many seconds would it take Justin to reach the top if he did not run up any steps of the escalator at all? (10) The distance between Station Atena and Station Barcena is 84 miles. A train starts from Atena towards Barcena. A bird starts at the same time from Barcena straight towards the moving train. On reaching the train, it instantaneously turns back and returns to Barcena. The bird makes these journeys from Barcena to the train and back to Barcena continuously till the train reaches Barcena. The bird finally returns to Barcena and rests. Calculate the total distance in miles the bird travels in the following two cases: (a) the bird flies at 80 miles per hour and the speed of the train is 60 miles per hour (b) the bird flies at 60 miles per hour and the speed of the train is 80 miles per hour (11)A block of wood in the form of a cuboid 3" x 10" x 14" has all its six faces painted pink. If the wooden block is cut into 420 cubes of 1" x 1" x 1", how many of these would have pink paint on them? (12) "Dad, where had you been?" asked Graham. "I had been to the attic, my son," replied Dad. "And do you know what I saw there? There was a big web with 10 spiders and flies on it." "How many spiders were there?" asked the little boy with curiosity. "Well, there were a total of 74 legs on the web," answered Dad with a smile. "Now you can find out how many spiders were there by yourself. Can't you?" Can you help the little boy find out how many spiders were on the web in the attic? (13)There is a number that is 8 times the sum of its digits. What is this number? (14) The drive from Oakland to Pinewood was a tricky one. I covered the uphill distance of 45 miles at 42 miles per hour. The return journey from Pinewood to Oakland was downhill, and I managed to drive at 56 miles per hour. What was my average speed for the entire journey? (15) A tennis championship is played on a knock-out basis, i.e., a player is out of the tournament when he loses a match. (a) How many players participate in the tournament if 255 matches are totally played? (b) How many matches are played in the tournament if 46 players totally participate? (16) Andy: "When I add 5 times my age 5 years from now to 6 times my age 6 years from now, I get 12 times my current age. How old will I be 5 years from now?" (17) A rich merchant had collected many gold coins. He did not want anybody to know about them. One day, his wife asked, "How many gold coins do we have?" After pausing a moment, he replied, "Well! If I divide the coins into two unequal numbers, then 45 times the difference between the two numbers equals the difference between the squares of the two numbers." The wife looked puzzled. Can you help the merchant's wife by finding out how many gold coins they have? (18) A snake slides through a long cylindrical hole in the ground at 6 centimetres per second. The hole is 7.80 metres in length. The snake takes 15 seconds to enter the hole. (a) What is the length in centimetres of the snake ? (b) How many seconds does the snake take to exit the hole after entering it? (19) Consider 30 lines drawn at a tangent to an ellipse. The lines break up the plane into several regions, some bounded (i.e., enclosed) and others unbounded. How many unbounded regions are there? (20) A set of football matches is to be organized in a "round-robin" fashion, i.e., every participating team plays a match against every other team once and only once. If 105 matches are totally played, how many teams participated? (21) A cylinder 60 cm high has a circumference of 20 cm. A string makes exactly 4 complete turns round the cylinder while its two ends touch the cylinder's top and bottom. How long is the string in cm? (22) Divide $118 (in whole $ increments) into a number of bags so that I can ask for any amount between $1 and $118, and you can give me the proper amount by giving me a certain number of these bags without opening them. What is the minimum number of bags you will require? (23) Bodo weighs 140 pounds more than his sister, Stacy. Their combined weight is 200 pounds. How many pounds does Bodo weigh? (24) It was vacation time, and so I decided to visit my cousin's home. What a grand time we had! In the mornings, we both would go for a jog. The evenings were spent on the tennis court. Tiring as these activities were, we could manage only one per day, i.e., either we went for a jog or played tennis each day. There were days when we felt lazy and stayed home all day long. Now, there were 16 mornings when we did nothing, 14 evenings when we stayed at home, and a total of 10 days when we jogged or played tennis. For how many days did I stay at my cousin's place? (25) Ann purchased a house for $ 176812. She wants to sell it for a profit of exactly 12%. However, she does not want to sell it herself. She wants a Real Estate Agent to sell it for her. The Agent must make a commission of exactly 5.7% (in addition to Ann's 12% profit). How much must the Agent sell the house for? Give your answer to the nearest dollar. |