Brain Teasers
A doctor and a bus driver are both in love with the same woman, an attractive girl named Sarah. The bus driver had to go on a long bus trip that would last a week. Before he left, he gave Sarah seven apples. Why?
An apple a day keeps the doctor away!
There is a word in the English language in which the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four signify a great man, and the whole word, a great woman. What is the word?
Heroine
Two boxers are in a match scheduled for 12 rounds. (Pure boxing only. There are no kicking or takedowns). One of the boxers gets knocked out after only six rounds, yet no man throws a punch. How is this possible?
Both the boxers were female.
(Excerpt from “Inside the Mind of an Octopus” by Naureen Ghani)
In an octopus, the majority of neurons are in the arms themselves—nearly twice as many as in the central brain. Each arm has about 300 suckers and each sucker contains up to 10,000 neurons. Octopus suckers attach to surfaces as a local reflex. Since chemoreceptors line the sucker rim, the octopus can taste surfaces as it moves. There are also mechanoreceptors and proprioceptors present: the former provide information on touch and pressure, while the latter supply information about muscle activity.
mechanoreceptors : proprioceptors ::
A) arms : suckers
B) touch and pressure : muscle activity
C) movement and sound : taste
D) sensors : neurons
B) is the correct answer: The text states that mechanoreceptors “provide information on touch and pressure” and proprioceptors “supply information about muscle activity.” B) is therefore the correct answer.
A) is incorrect because an octopus’s suckers are located on its arms, but proprioceptors are not located on mechanoreceptors.
C) is incorrect because while both types of receptors do take in different types of sensory input, chemoreceptors take in tastes, not proprioceptors.
D) is incorrect because both mechanoreceptors and proprioceptors are described as types of neurons, which serve to sense the external world.
A woman shoots her husband. Then, she holds him underwater for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later, they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?
The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it and hung it up to dry.
In my hand, I have two coins that are newly minted. Together, they total 30 cents. One isn't a nickel. What are the coins?
A quarter and a nickel.
A family has two parents and six sons. Each of the sons has one sister. How many people are in the family?
Nine. Two parents, six sons and one daughter!
(Excerpt from On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering by John Paul II)
Suffering is something which is still wider than sickness, more complex, and at the same time still more deeply rooted in humanity itself. A certain idea of this problem comes to us from the distinction between physical suffering and moral suffering. This distinction is based upon the double dimension of the human being and indicates the bodily and spiritual element as the immediate or direct subject of suffering. Insofar as the words "suffering" and "pain" can, up to a certain degree, be used as synonyms, physical suffering is present when "the body is hurting" in some way, whereas moral suffering is "pain of the soul." In fact, it is a question of pain of a spiritual nature, and not only of the "psychological" dimension of pain, that accompanies both moral and physical suffering. The vastness and the many forms of moral suffering are certainly no less in number than the forms of physical suffering. But at the same time, moral suffering seems as it were less identified and less reachable by therapy.
physical suffering : body ::
A) mental suffering : soul
B) spiritual suffering : mind
C) moral suffering : soul
D) corporeal suffering : mind
C) is the correct answer: The author notes that his distinction between physical suffering and moral suffering “is based upon the double dimension of the human being and indicates the bodily or spiritual element as the immediate or direct subject of suffering.” As physical suffering afflicts its direct subject, the body, so too does moral suffering afflict the mind, rather than the soul.
(B) is incorrect because spiritual suffering would afflict the spirit or the soul, rather than the mind.
(D) is incorrect because corporeal suffering would afflict the body, not the mind. The English word “corporeal” comes from the Latin word “corpus,” meaning “body.” “Corporeal” thus means “bodily.”
A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?
The river was frozen.
You're escaping a labyrinth, and there are three exits. Exit A leads to an inferno. Exit B leads to an assassin. Exit C leads to a lion that hasn't eaten in 3 years. Which exit do you pick?
Exit C. If a lion hasn't eaten in 3 years, it has definitely starved to death.
A man describes his daughters, saying, "They are all blonde, but two; all brunette but two; and all redheaded but two." How many daughters does he have?
Three. A blonde, a brunette and a redhead.
(Excerpt from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Helen Zimmern)
The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? Who is it really that puts questions to us here? What really is this "Will to Truth" in us? Granted that we want the truth: Why not rather untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance?
Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and "innateness." The greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life.
The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us. Without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely imagined world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live—the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. To recognize untruth as a condition of life; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil.
logic : instinct ::
A) hatred : fear
B) happiness : joy
C) truth : myth
D) error : philosophy
A) is the correct answer: The author of Passage 1 writes that: “The greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels.” Thus, logic is influenced by instinct, and in a similar way, hatred is influenced by fear, though neither of such influences may be obvious at first. (A) is therefore correct.
(B) is incorrect because “happiness” and “joy” do not share this influenced-influencer relationship.
(C) is incorrect because myth does not directly influence truth, based on the information in both passages.
(D) is incorrect because “error” is a specific mistake and “philosophy” is a wider system of thinking, which does not fit with influenced-influencer relationship of the original pair of terms.
Turn me on my side, and I am everything. Cut me in half, and I am nothing. What am I?
The number 8.
Four cars come to a four-way stop, all coming from a different direction. They can't decide who got there first, so they all go forward at the same time. They do not crash into each other, but all four cars go. How is this possible?
They all made right-hand turns.
Robbie goes into a restaurant and orders a deli sandwich and a cola for lunch. Afterward, he pays his bill, tips his waitress, and goes outside. He slowly takes in his surroundings. The sky is black and the city streets are deserted. What happened?
The man worked the night shift and took his lunch break in the middle of the night.
(Excerpt from “Wonder & Love” by George Stanciu)
Psychologist Francine Patterson discovered the same thing while training her female gorilla Koko: “Although Koko has never seen a real alligator, she is petrified of toothy stuffed or rubber facsimiles. I have exploited Koko’s irrational fear of this reptile by placing toy alligators in parts of the trailer I don’t want her to touch.”
The passage indicates that when Francine Patterson discovered Koko was afraid of toy alligators, she
A) tried to encourage Koko to overcome this irrational phobia.
B) published a paper documenting her discovery.
C) rid her entire house of any offending toys.
D) used this fear to help her control Koko’s behavior.
D) is the correct answer: The third paragraph describes how Patterson “exploited Koko’sirrationalfearofthisreptilebyplacingtoyalligatorsinpartsofthetrailerIdon’t want her to touch.” Thus, (D) is the correct answer.
(A)is incorrect because Patterson exploited Koko’s fear, and did not try to encourage her to overcome it.
(B)is incorrect because the passage mentions none of Patterson’s papers.
(C) is incorrect because Patterson placed toys in places she did not want Koko to go; she did not rid the home of any offending toys.
A red house is made from red bricks. A blue house is made from blue bricks. A yellow house is made from yellow bricks. What is a greenhouse made from?
Glass
An elevator is on the ground floor. There are four people in the elevator including me. When the lift reaches the first floor, one person gets out and three people get in. The lift goes up to the second floor, two people get out, six people get in. It then goes up to the next floor, no one gets out but 12 people get in. Halfway up to the next floor, the elevator cable snaps. It crashes to the floor. Everyone else dies in the elevator except me. How did I survive?
I got off on the first floor.
A suspected burglar is brought in for questioning for a robbery that happened on the 4th of July. He tells the police he has an alibi, as he was home at the time of the robbery. A mailman verifies that he saw the suspect at home at the time of the robbery while on his mail route. The police, however, immediately know the mailman is lying. How?
The mail doesn’t run on the 4th of July, so there’s no way the mailman could have seen the suspect on his mail route.
(Excerpt from “White Nights” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett) Leaning on the canal railing stood a woman with her elbows on the rail; she was apparently looking with great attention at the muddy water of the canal. She was wearing a very charming yellow hat and a jaunty little black mantle."She's a girl, and I am sure she is dark,"I thought. She did not seem to hear my footsteps, and did not even stir when I passed by with bated breath and loudly throbbing heart.
"Strange,"I thought; "she must be deeply absorbed in something,"and all at once I stopped as though petrified. I heard a muffled sob.Yes! I was not mistaken, the girl was crying, and a minute later I heard sob after sob. Good Heavens! My heart sank. And timid as I was with women, yet this was such a moment...I turned, took a step towards her, and should certainly have pronounced the word "Madam!" if I had not known that that exclamation has been uttered a thousand times in every Russian society novel.
When the narrator first notices the woman, he
A) hears her crying.
B) sees a suspicious figure across the street.
C) grows curious about her appearance.
D) believes that he knows her.
C) is the correct answer: Upon first noticing the woman, the narrator wonders about her complexion, and whether “she is dark.” Only later does he hear a “muffled sob.” Thus, (C) is correct.
(A) is incorrect because he notices the woman is crying only after, when he passes by her.
(B) is incorrect because the narrator only sees the older gentleman across from the woman after he has taken in her appearance.
(D) is incorrect because the narrator never suggests that he knows the woman.