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MIND GAMES. PUZZLES

English

MIND GAMES. PUZZLES

Left-handed logic

A head teacher checked round the school every day to see the teachers and pupils were progressing. He noticed that in one class, all the children always put up their hands when their teachers asked a question. Not only that, but whichever child the teacher picked (and she always seemed to ask different children), they always got the answer right. The head teacher was rightly suspicious, particularly when he asked a question one day, and got a wrong answer.
How did the teacher ensure that the pupils got the right answer to the questions she asked?

The Wolf, the Goat, and the Cabbage

An old man once had to bring a wolf, a goat and a cabbage across the river. The boat was tiny and could carry only the old man and one of his loads at a time. The other two subjects/objects he had to leave on their own. He had to take good care of them, since the wolf would like to eat a goat if he would get the chance, while the goat appeared to regale itself with a tasty cabbage.
How can he bring all three safely to the other side of the river without having one eating another?

On the right track

A single train track runs through a tunnel. One afternoon, two trains go through the tunnel, one entering from the east and the other from the west. Neither stops or changes speed and yet, miraculously you might think they do not crash. Why not?

Back to front

A ship enters the west end of the Panama Canal and leaves it at its east end. It sails straight ahead the whole way, and yet, as it leaves the canal, it immediately enters the Pacific Ocean. Can you account for this seeming oddity?

Big babies

What is it that a baby has more of than an adult?

Appropriate anagrams

Can you decode these anagrams?
I’m a dot in place.
Accord not in it.
Cash lost in them.
Twelve plus one.
Here come dots.
A year to shut down.

 

SOLUTIONS:

Left-handed logic

She told all the children to put up their hands, but if they were sure they knew the answer, they should put up their right hands, and if they weren’t sure, they should put up their left hands.

The Wolf, the Goat, and the Cabbage

The old man takes the Goat from one bank of the river to another leaving the Wolf and the Cabbage. He returns alone. Then the old man takes the Cabbage and puts it across the river. He returns with the Goat. The old man leaves the Goat and takes the Wolf. He returns and takes the Goat!

On the right track

One goes through the tunnel at 1 pm. The other goes through at 5 pm.

Back to front

Strangely, because of the way the isthmus bends, the Panama Canal runs from the Caribbean in the north-west to the Pacific in the south-east.

Big babies

Bones. A baby is born with 350 separate bones. As the baby grows, some of these bones join together, so the same person as an adult has only 206 bones.

 

Appropriate anagrams
• A decimal point
• Contradiction
• Slot machines
• Eleven plus two
• The Morse code
• Year two thousand

 

Anna Kartashova