December 2012 Logic & Maths Puzzles
1. Guitar players, surfers & quiche
Look at these statements.
(a) Some guitar players eat quiche.
(b) All quiche eaters are surfers.
Given these statements, is this statement true or false?
“All guitar players are surfers.”
(Don’t worry about whether the original statements are true or not; just assume they are and apply the logic.)
2. Candles
Burning ten candles leaves enough wax behind to make one new candle. If you started with 1000 candles, how many more whole candles could you make by recycling the leftover wax?
3. Clockwatching
The picture shows a clock at 10 minutes past 2.
Notice that the minute hand and the hour hand are not symmetrical about the vertical axis; but just a short time previously they would have been.
Which of the following times is the closest to having symmetrical hands,
i.e. angle x = angle y?
a. Nine minutes past ten
b. Nine and a quarter minutes past ten
c. Nine and a half minutes past ten
d. Nine and three quarter minutes past ten.
4. Pigs and Peacocks
There is an enclosure in the zoo that holds both pigs and peacocks. If there are 30 eyes and 44 feet altogether, how many pigs and how many peacocks are there?
5. Tut & Eros
King Tut died 120 years after King Eros was born.
Their combined ages when they died was 100 years.
King Eros died in the year 40 BC.
In what year was King Tut born?
6. Joe’s Oranges
Joe bought a bag of oranges on Monday and ate one third of them.
On Tuesday he ate half of the remaining oranges.
When he looked in the bag on Wednesday he still had two oranges left.
How many oranges did he start with?
7. Sock It To Me
In your sock drawer, you have three red socks, five blue socks, eight brown socks, seven white socks and four black socks.
You are in a hurry and there’s a power failure.
How many socks do you have to take out of the sock drawer in the dark to be sure of having a matching pair?
8. Choc-a-Lot
Boy A can eat 50 standard chocolates per minute, while Boy B can eat half as many in twice the time.
Assuming they can keep up the pace, How many chocolates can both boy A and Boy B eat between them in 2 minutes?
9. How Many Triangles?
What is the total number of triangles in this figure?
10. Cogitate
State which weight or weights will rise and which will fall when the handle is turned in the direction shown.