#2             77. TEN QUICKIES                       

1. How many birthdays does the average man have?

2. Some months have 30 days, some have 31. How many months have 28 days?

3. A doctor gives you three pills, and tells you to take one every half hour. How long will they last you?

4. How far can a dog run into the woods?

5. I have in my hand two coins which total 55 cents in value. One is not a 50 cent piece. What are the coins?
6. A farmer had 17 sheep. All but nine died. How many live sheep did he have left?

7. Divide 30 by 1/2 and add 10. What is the answer?

8. An archaeologist claimed to have found some gold coins dated 46 BC.
Do you think he did?

9. Is it legal in Australia for a man to marry his widow’s sister?

10. What word is spelt wrongly in this test?

You are pretty good if you gave ten correct answers!

HINT 1

These are all ‘trick’ questions. Never be satisfied with the ‘obvious’ answer. Can the question be iterpreted in more than one way? Does the question make sense?
HINT 2

In desperation you might carefully look at each word in a question. What does the word mean? Does it have special significance in this context?
SOLUTIONS

(1) one (2) twelve (3) one hour (4) halfway – after that he is running out (5) a 5 cent piece and a 50 cent piece (6) nine (7) 70 (8) no (9) dead men can’t marry (10) wrongly.
EXTENSIONS

1. These questions are tricky for different reasons. Now that you have seen the answers, you might like to classify these problems into different groups. For example, which questions use words in an inclusive/exclusive way?

2. Some of these questions occur in different guise. For example one of them is often seen in terms of fence posts. Which one?

3. Find some more simple problems of this type. How do they fit into your classification?