Easy Teasy - Are you paying attention back there? Quiz | Brain Teasers

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In your head (the feebleminded may use a calculator), divide the square of eight by the multiple of two of the cube root of twenty-seven, to which one has first been added. What number should you get?

Answer: 8

Work this backwards:
First add 1 to: the cube root of 27: ie 1 + 3 = 4
then multiply this by 2: 4 x 2 = 8.
8 is what you must divide by.
(Not 7: 1 must FIRST be added to the cube root).
Now, what's the 'square of eight'? 8 x 8 = 64.
Whether you do 64/8 or 8x8/8, the answer is still 8.

2. Three couples attend marriage counselling. John is a mechanic, and loves Sue, who is a clerk. Harry is a teacher, and so is Isabel. James is a dentist, and Sally is a librarian. James plays golf at weekends, and Isabel reads. The quiz-lover won't let her husband's overalls into the house. The sailor always has wine aboard his yacht. Harry is a baseball fan, and drinks beer. John drinks orange juice, James prefers whisky. Sue enjoys a glass of wine, Sally likes doing quizzes on the internet. Sue goes clubbing, but John likes sailing. Sally's favourite drink is ginger ale, but Isabel prefers hot chocolate. A teacher is married to the baseball fan. To whom is James married?

Answer: Sue

The distraction here is that while 'John loves Sue', that doesn't necessarily mean they are married.
A teacher (ie Harry or Isabel) is married to the baseball fan (ie Harry): therefore Harry is married to Isabel.
The quiz-lover (ie Sally) won't let her husband's overalls in the house. James is a dentist, Harry is a teacher, John is a mechanic: who do you think is her husband? John is married to Sally.
The remaining married couple is James and Sue.

If you have sorted it out, the following plausible picture emerges:
Harry and Isabel are married, with no apparent problems apart from differing weekend interests.
John the weekend sailor is having an affair with Sue the party girl;
this is why he always keeps wine aboard his yacht.
Sue's husband James is too busy playing golf to notice, while
John's wife Sally is doing quizzes on the internet....!

3. I give you a series of letters. You tell me - what letter comes after the next in sequence? Here is the series: L, Y, T, C, A, D, O, R, E...

Answer: P

Pterodactyl is a word with a uniquely recognisable spelling.
Naturally, the series of letters comes from the spelling of 'PTERODACTYL' backwards, and the next in sequence is 'T'.
The letter AFTER that, which is what was asked for, is 'P'.

4. The Jamaican Faithful Motor Corporation manufactures its Stevedore lorries in five colours, arranged in production order as follows: Red lorry, Yellow lorry, Green lorry; Red lorry, Yellow lorry, Black lorry; Red lorry, Black lorry, Green lorry; Black lorry, Yellow lorry, Green lorry; Red lorry, ___________ , and Green lorry. Fill in the blank!

Answer: Blue lorry

Only four colours are mentioned in the question (Red, Green, Yellow and Black). If you were paying attention, you noticed that the lorries are manufactured in FIVE colours. Of the four options provided, the only colour not yet used, which must therefore be the missing fifth colour, is Blue.

5. Three cavalry scouts are taken prisoner by Crazy Horse. (You must remember that scouts are smart people - they were only caught because they were surrounded and outnumbered.) Crazy Horse decides to set them a test. He lines them up in a row, one behind the other, and shows them 5 feathers: 3 eagle feathers and 2 crow feathers. One of any of these feathers is to be bound to each man's head, so that the last man in line can see two feathers, the middle one only one, and the man in front none at all. The first man who can correctly identify what kind of feather is on his own head will be set free. The other two will be killed. The scouts are blindfolded, the feathers bound to their heads, and the blindfolds are removed. After a little while, the front man in line speaks up and says, "The feather on my head is a(n) __________ feather." He is set free. From what kind of bird was this man's feather?

Answer: eagle

Remember, scouts are smart people, so they would be able to count on each other to think logically! The front man must have reasoned something like this: If the last man could see two crow feathers, he would have known that his was an eagle feather, and he would have spoken up. Since he remained silent, the middle man would have known that the last man did not see two crow feathers, but at most one. If the middle man had seen a crow feather in front of him, he would have known that he himself was wearing an eagle feather. Since he also remained silent, he cannot be seeing a crow feather - and therefore I have an eagle feather.

6. Some poets are Romantics; all poets are writers. Some writers write romance novels. Some romance novelists write poetry. All romance novelists are writers. Can we therefore conclude that some romance novelists are Romantics?

Answer: No

The question has two components: the logical and the specific.
In terms of the logical:
on the one hand, 'Romantic poets' are a subset of 'all poets', which is a subset of 'all writers', and
on the other hand, 'romance novelists' are a subset of 'all writers'.
Since some 'romance novelists' are also 'poets', there is some intersection between 'romance novelists' and 'all poets', but this is not the same thing as intersection between 'romance novelists' and the specific subset of 'Romantic poets'. The latter intersection *may* exist, but we cannot say definitely that there is such an intersection, at least not on the basis of the stated information alone.
In terms of the specific:
the capitalization of 'Romantics' in respect of some poets means that we are referring to the specific literary movement or genre of Romantic poetry which was prominent between approximately 1750 and 1850. Some of the best known Romantic poets (as opposed to romantic poets) include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and, arguably, William Blake.

7. You have 3.8 gallons of fuel remaining in your tank, and 160 miles to your destination. If you drive at 60 miles per hour (Option A), you will use 1.5 gallons per hour, and if you drive at 45 miles per hour, you will use 1 gallon per hour (Option B). There is a short-cut using gravel roads, which will reduce the distance by 20 miles, but this means a higher fuel consumption of 1.25 gallons per hour at 45 miles per hour (Option C). Which option will be the best choice to get you to your destination? (Answer with the single letter of that option)

Answer: B

Option A: To travel 160 miles at 60 miles per hour, you would drive for 160/60 or 2.67 hours; at 1.5 gallons per hour, this would require 4 gallons of fuel, and you have only 3.8.
Option C: To travel 140 miles at 45 miles per hour on gravel roads, you would drive for 140/45 or 3.11 hours; at 1.25 gallons per hour, this would need 3.89 gallons of fuel; again, more than you have.
Option B: To travel 160 miles at 45 miles per hour, you would drive for 3.56 hours; at 1 gallon per hour, you would just make it.

8. You have five white and five black balls. You must put all of these into two bags. You may divide them any way you please between the bags, as long as you do not leave either bag empty. The bags will then be labelled at random, and you will not know which is which. You will be given a choice of bag A or bag B, and you must draw one ball blindly from the bag you chose. If you draw a white ball, you live; if you draw a black ball, you die. Presumably, you want to draw a white ball. Now, decide how you will distribute the balls between the two bags to give yourself the best chance of drawing a white. In the first bag you fill, how many white and/or black balls will there be in that bag? Give your answer as two digits, for the number of white balls and black, separated by a space (eg. '3 2' which would mean 3 white balls and 2 black balls)

Answer: 1 0

The best chance for survival: put a single white ball in one bag,
and the remaining 4 white balls and five black balls in the other.
If you happen to draw from the bag with one ball (a 50% chance), then
you have, in that case, a 100% chance of drawing white.
If you happen to draw from the other bag (with 9 balls, and also a 50% chance), then you have a 4/9 chance of drawing white, or a 44.4444% chance.
Your average chance of drawing a white ball will be 50% of 100%,
plus 50% of 44.4444%, so your overall chance of survival will be 72.2222%.
In this situation, that's as good a chance as your are going to get.

9. Three thieves meet at their hideout for supper. Sharp Billy has 'liberated' five buns, Jack the Hand has pocketed eight coppers, and Hangdog Harry has three eggs. Jack offers to pay for his share, and the three agree to share the food equally, valuing one egg as equal to one bun, and that Jack will pay the eight coppers for his food. Harry suggests that he should get three coppers, and Billy five, but Sharp Billy is not happy; he reckons he should get more. Can you prevent a fight over supper? What is fair? Give your answer as 3 single digits, each digit representing the number of coppers due to, in order, Billy, Harry, and Jack.

Answer: 7 1 0

This is my version of a classic problem.
To understand this more easily, let's create a unit called a 'bunegg' (in which buns and eggs, being equal in value, are considered together).
There are 8 buneggs available; to create three equal meals, each of the thieves will get 2+2/3 buneggs.
Since Harry started with 3 buneggs, his contribution to Jack's meal is only 1/3 of a bunegg.
Sharp Billy started with 5 buneggs, and his contribution to Jack's meal is 2+1/3 of a bunegg, or 7/3.
Sharp Billy's contribution is 7 times as great as Harry's, so he should get 7 coppers for every one that goes to Harry. Jack gets 0 coppers, since he contributed no food.
What makes this problem tricky is the need to realise that Jack is not putting the coins into a common pool, but paying the other two for his food; and therefore that what determines the division of coppers is not the contribution of the other two to the common meal but rather their individual contributions to *Jack's* meal.

10. You may need a computer to help you work this out. What is the next number in this series? 1; 10; 11; 110; 111; ?

Answer: 1110

The numbers are written in base 2 (binary code). The decimal values of the given series are 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7, and the pattern is to first double a number, then to add one, and repeat, doubling and adding one alternately. 1 is doubled to get 2; 2 plus one is 3; 3 is doubled to get 6; 6 plus one is 7. Since the next step in this pattern is to double the last number in the series (111, decimal value 7), you need to get 14, or 1110 (one eight, one four, one two and no ones) in base 2. Note that doubling a number in binary code simply requires all values to move left by one position.

Therefore, without knowing anything about base 2, you could still get this right just by following and completing the established pattern!

Source: Author Rimrunner

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor crisw before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Easy Teasy - Are you paying attention back there? Quiz

This is supposed to be testing but achievable - IF you pay attention to what's asked. You should be able to answer everything by reading the question carefully and thinking logically.

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