The Answers
1. Incorrectly.
2. 1:45. The man gave away a total of 25 cents. He divided it between two
people. Therefore, he gave a quarter to two.
3. None, the boat rises with the tide. Duh.
4. White. If all the walls face south, the house is at the north pole, and
the bear, therefore, is a polar bear.
5. Three. Well, it seems that it could almost be either, but if you follow
the mathematical orders of operation, division is performed before addition.
So... half of two is one. Then add two, and the answer is three.
6. Sloppy is a goldfish. The wind blew the shutters in, which knocked his
goldfish-bowl off the table, and it broke, killing him.
7. None. No matter how big a hole is, it's still a hole: the absence of
dirt. (And those of you who said 36 cubic feet are wrong for another reason,
too. You would have needed the length measurement too. So you don't even
know how much air is in the hole.)
8. Both questions, same answer: the ball in the bucket of 45 degree F water
hits the bottom of the bucket last. Did you think that the water in the 30
degree F bucket is frozen? Think again. The question said nothing about that
bucket having anything in it. Therefore, there is no water (or ice) to slow
the ball down...
9. The time and month/date/year are 12:34, 5/6/78.
10. An umbrella.
11. One. If he combines all of his haystacks, they all become one big stack.
12. The temperature.
13. The years are in B.C., not A.D. as you probably assumed. Based on the
system we use to number the years, the years counted down in B.C. (but they
weren't counting backwards back then).
14. A bed.
15. None. Moses didn't take animals on the ark. Noah did.
16. This year. He is 100, and his son is 50.
17. Gwen had forty-two boyfriends. 42-1=41. 41+3=44. 44/4=11. 11-1=10.
18. Five Thousand. Ten power five = 100,000. Divide that out (it was a 19:1
ratio) and you get a ratio of 95,000:5,000 (daughters
ons).
19. Four. If you square it, you get 16. Subtract his number of hits and you
get 12. Subtract 10 and then 2 more and you get 0.
20. Two ounces. (Beach ball, or ping-pong ball?) 2x2=4. 4+2^2=8. 8-8=0.
21. Eleven men (and 15 horses). 11 (men) x 2 (feet per man)=22, 15 (horses)
x 4 (feet per horse)=60, and 22 (men's feet) + 60 (horse's feet) = 82 feet.
Also, 11 (men) + 15 (horses) = 26 (total heads).
22. House numbers. Each digit costs 15 cents.
23. It's impossible to dig a half of a hole. Either you have a hole, or you
don't.
24. The letter E.
