Test your logic by answering these questions, and have fun with your students! Don’t worry, we’ve provided you with all the answers below, but no peeking, try to come up with a logical solution by yourselves and activate that grey matter.

The brain teasers are divided into three categories to choose from – Easy, Medium, and Challenging. Use these as part of a game, as challenges on the board to consider during slow parts of your lesson, or just something to get students – and colleagues – thinking outside the box.

Easy

1. When can a person move at the speed of a car?
2. Which fish is the most valuable?
3. What is the difference between a dog and a flea?
4. Which sickness can never be found on land?
5. Where can you find cities without buildings, forests without trees and seas without water?
6. How can you cut down a branch where a bird is sitting, without disturbing the bird?
7. How many eggs can you eat on an empty stomach?
8. Some months have 30 and some 31 days. How many have 28 days?
9. Jane’s mother has three daughters. One is named Helen and another Martha. What’s the name of the third sister?
10. A pilot is watching a large herd of red and orange elephants from the airplane. Which herd of elephants is better seen from the plane?

 Answers

1. When they are in the car.
2. A goldfish.
3. A dog is a mammal, and a flea is an insect. (Or just brainstorm.)
4. Seasickness.
5. In an atlas.
6. Wait until the bird flies off.
7. Just one. Then your stomach is not empty anymore.
8. All of them.
9. Jane.
10. Neither of them. There are no such things as red and orange elephants.

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Medium

1. There are two sons and two fathers going on a fishing trip, but there are only three of them. How is that?
2. What appears two times in an instant, but only once in one moment?
3. If it rains heavily at noon, can the sun shine brightly 12 hours later?
4. If you have one match on you and you walk into a dark room in which there are: kerosene, a gas lamp, and a stove, which one will you’ll light up first?
5. If there are 21 pieces of candy in a box and you take 5, how many pieces of candy will you have?
6. There are 10 white and 10 black socks in the bag. How many socks do you need to pull out of the bag to have one pair of socks?
7. The horse has a 5-meters-long rope tied around its neck. The hay stands at a distance of 10 meters, and the horse can still reach it. How?
8. You are running a marathon, and at one point you pass the runner that was in third place. In what place are you now?
9. There are 5 apples in the basket. If we have five children, is it possible that each of them gets one apple, and that one apple remains in the basket?
10. A girl who has just passed her driving test is on a one-way street, going in the opposite direction, and yet she did not break any rules. How is that possible?

Answers

1. The grandfather, the father, and the son.
2. The letter T.
3. No, because it will be night then.
4. The match.
5. You will have 5 pieces of candy.
6. It doesn’t say they have to match.
7. It doesn’t say that the other end of the rope is tied to anything.
8. In third place.
9. You give an apple to 4 of the children, and you give the fifth child the basket with the apple.
10. She is walking.

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Challenging

1. Anna and Hannah are twin sisters. One is always lying, and one always tells the truth. The teacher was not sure which one was which, and she asked one of them, “Does Anna lie?” And she replied “yes.” The teacher immediately knew with which girl she was talking. Do you?
2. It takes 10 minutes to fry a steak – five minutes on each side. Two steaks can fit in the pan. What’s the least amount of time needed to get 3 steaks fried in the pan?
3. You have 2 buckets – one of 3 litres and the other of 5 litres. Use them to measure exactly 4 litres of water.
4. In one room there are three bulbs and in the other room three switches. How will we know which switch turns on which light bulb, if from the switch room we can’t see into the room with the bulbs, and we can only once move from one room to the other?
5. At the end of a quiz show, the winner was given the opportunity to choose a box: two were empty and one full of money. There was a label on each box. The contestant was told that only one was true, and the other two were untrue.
   Inscription on the first box: Money is not here.
   Inscription on the second box: Money is not here.
   Inscription on the third box: The money is in the second box.
   Which box should the competitor choose to win extra money?

Answers

1. With Hannah. If Anna lies and Hannah tells the truth, then Anna would answer ‘no’ and Hannah ‘yes’. So in any case, the teacher knew it was Hannah.
2. 15 minutes. After five minutes, take one steak from the pan and put the third one in. After ten minutes, the first steak is over, and the other two should be fried on just one side.
3. Fill the three-litre bucket and pour the water into the five-litre bucket which will then have room for two litres. Then refill the three-litre bucket and pour the water into the five-litre bucket again. In your 3 litre bucket, a litre of water will remain. Empty the five-litre bucket and pour the remaining water from the first bucket. Then fill the three-litre bucket again and pour it into the big bucket. Now you have exactly four litres of water. (A diagram would help to explain this one.)
4. Turn on the first switch and leave it a little while. Then turn it off and turn on another switch. Go to the room with the bulbs.
   The bulb that lights up – the switch we turned on.
   2. A still warm bulb – the switch we turned on and turned off.
   3. The bulb that isn’t lit – the third switch.
5. The second box. Explanation: If the inscription on the first is true, then it is true in the second or the third. If the inscription on the third is true, then it is true in the first as well. If the inscription is true in the second box, then there are two false inscriptions left, so this is the solution.

For more teaching games, classroom activities, and teaching tips: Teaching Tips

About the Author

Milica Madić is a freelance article/blog writer from Serbia, with experience in teaching and working with young learners.