Suppose we lay down two cups in front of you. One of the cups is filled with tea and the other one with coffee. Now we ask you to take a spoonful of tea and mix it with the coffee. At this moment, the coffee cup has a mixture of tea and coffee. You have to take that mixture (spoonful) and add it back to the tea. Can you now tell if the cup of coffee has more tea or the cup of tea has more coffee?

A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator or if it was raining that day, he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his apartment that is on the twelfth floor. Why?

It’s a 7 letter word. If we remove 1 letter from it, it remains the same. If we remove 2 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 3 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 4 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 5 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove 6 letters from it, it remains the same. If we remove all letters from it, it remains the same. What is it?

A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, “If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper, then you have to give me $50 but if I cannot, I will pay you $50.” The boy looks around and sees no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he’ll just say he weighs more or less. In the end, the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet?

How quickly can you find out what is unusual about this paragraph? It looks so ordinary that you would think that nothing was 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 any way. You must do it without coaching. No doubt if you work at it for long, it will dawn on you. I don’t know. Now, go to work and try your luck.

A man brought a jeweler six chains that each had five links. He wanted the jeweler to join all six chains together to make one long, closed, circular chain. The jeweler said, “It’ll cost you a buck for every link I open and close. You want me to join six chains, so the job will cost you six bucks.” “No, no,” replied the man, “the job can be done for less.” Is he right, and if so, how can it be done?

You are standing in a hallway next to 3 light switches that have been switched off. There is another room down the hallway with 3 light bulbs – all are incandescent light bulbs and each light bulb is operated by one of the switches in the hallway. The door to the room is closed and you cannot see the light bulbs from the hallway. How would you figure out which switch operates which light bulb, if you can enter the room with the light bulbs only once?

A man decides to buy a nice horse. He pays $600 for it and he is very content with this strong animal. After a year the value of the horse has increased to $700 and he decides to sell the horse. But a few days later he regrets his decision so he buys back the horse again. Unfortunately he has to pay $800 to get it back so he loses $100. After another year of owning the horse he finally decides to sell the horse for $900. What is the overall profit the man makes?

Jack is a farmer and owns a chicken farm. One day, he took a basket of fresh eggs to the market to sell. The first person bought half of all the eggs in the basket and half an egg. Then, the second person bought half of the remaining eggs and half an egg. Later, the third person bought half of the remaining eggs and half an egg. Now Jack’s basket has only 1 egg left. If no eggs were broken in the process, how many eggs did he originally have in his basket?

Johnny is walking home. He has $300 to bring home to his mom. While he is walking, a man stops him and gives him a chance to double his money. The man says, “I’ll give you $600 if you can roll 1 die and get a 4 or above, you can roll 2 dice and get a 5 or 6 on at least one of them, or you can roll 3 dice and get a 6 on at least one die. If you don’t I get your $300.” What does Johnny do to have the best chance of getting home with the money?

Arthur lives with his parents in Chicago. Last week, while his parents were out, Arthur’s next-door neighbor Sophie came round to spend the evening. At one point, she popped out to buy some cigarettes. Just then, two men burst into the apartment and, ignoring Arthur, took the TV set, the stereo and a computer. Arthur had never seen the men before, and they had no legal right to remove the equipment, yet he did nothing to stop them. In fact, he didn’t even act surprised by their behavior. Why not?

A man is about to take a trip to Iceland. He is awoken in the middle of the night by his security guard the night before he is supposed to leave. His guard tells him he needs to take a boat rather than a plane, because he dreamt that the plane was going to crash. The guard then leaves because it’s the end of his shift. The man listens to his guard and takes a boat. Soon after arriving in Iceland he hears that the plane he was supposed to travel on crashed. When he arrives home he fires his guard. Why?

A traveller comes to a fork in the road which leads to two villages. In one village the people always tell lies, and in the other village the people always tell the truth. The traveller needs to conduct business in the village where everyone tells the truth. A man from one of the villages is standing in the middle of the fork, but there is no indication of which village he is from. The traveller approaches the man and asks him one question. From the villager’s answer, he knows which road to follow. What did the traveller ask?

Henry walked down the street and bumped into his old friend from university. “I haven’t seen you for ages! I’ve married someone you wouldn’t know.” said the young friend . “This is our daughter!” “And what’s your name, girl?” Henry asked the little girl who was holding his friend’s hand. “It’s the same as my mummy!” Said the girl. “Oh so it’s Teagan, is it?” Henry asked. He was right! How did he know the girl’s name?

There are three jars filled with candies. One jar is filled with banana candies, one jar is filled with lemon candies and one jar has a mix of both. All the jars are mislabelled (i.e. all the jars have wrong labels about what kind of candies they contain). All the candies look very similar in shape, size and color and they even smell the same. The only way to distinguish them is by tasting. You have to eat one and only one candy to determine the correct jar labels. You can eat that one candy from any jar you want as long as you eat only one in total.