Math Riddles and Puzzles

Some are silly, and some are very challenging. All will be fun to solve. The answers are at the end of each group of riddles and puzzles.

1.What is the smallest number of ducks that can walk in this formation: two ducks in front of a duck, two ducks behind a duck, and a duck between two ducks?

2.If it takes ten people 10 days to plant a garden, how long will it take five people to plant half a garden?

3.Promise your parents that you will make your bed every day for 30 days if they will pay you 1 cent for the first day and for each day thereafter twice as much as the day before. If your parents agree, how much will they have to pay you for the thirtieth time that you make your bed?

4.If there are 25 students in your class and you shake every student's hand when you arrive, how many handshakes will you have to make?

5.If you reach into your sock drawer without looking, how many socks would you have to pull out to find a matching pair if you had 10 red socks 10 blue socks, and 10 green socks?

6.Choose your three favorite ice cream flavors. If you want a cone with two dips, how many different combinations of flavors could you have?

7.Draw a square on a piece of paper. Separate it into different regions by drawing 4 straight lines from one edge to another. What is the largest number of regions you can make?

8.Jane had 4 three-cent stamps and 3 four-cent stamps. How many different amounts of postage can be made from these stamps?

9.Farmer John was counting his cows and chickens and saw that together they had a total of 60 legs. If he had 22 cows and chickens, how many of each did he have?

Answers: If you have found another answer to any of the problems, e-mail us your answer. (1) 3 ducks, (2) 10 days, (3) $536,870,912, (4) 24 handshakes, (5) 4 socks, (6) 6 combinations, (7) 11 regions, (8) 18 different amounts, (9) 8 cows and 14 chickens.
 

MORE MATH RIDDLES AND PUZZLES

  1. When does LEG + GET = LET?

  2. Two hours from now, it will be half as long until noon as it will be an hour from now. What time is it now?

  3. The ages of a mother and her daughter add up to 66. The digits of the mother's age are those of her daughter's reversed? What three possible ages could they be?

  1. Leo has $80 in his piggy bank and 20 bills. If he has four more $1 bills than $5 bills and 2 more $5 bills than $10 bills, how many bills of each denomination does he have?

  2. If DESIGNER is worth 47231578, RING is worth 8351, and SEND is worth 2754. What is NERD worth?

  3. How many addition signs should be put between the digits of the number 123456789 to equal 99? Where should they be placed?

  4. Draw a blank tic-tac-toe game board. Can you arrange the numbers so that every row, column, and diagonal adds up to the same number?

  5. Take six different books. How many ways can you arrange them from left to right in a bookcase?

  6. Draw a clock face, including the numbers. Now, draw two lines across the face to divide it into 3 parts so that the sum of the numbers in each part is equal.

Answers: If you have found another answer to any of the problems, e-mail us your answer. (1) when LEG and GET are adjacent angles with E as the vertex. (2) 9:00 A.M. (3) Their ages could be 06 and 60, 24 and 42, 15 and 51. (4) He has four $10 bills, six $5 bills, and ten $1 bills. (5) NERD is worth 5784. (6) The number should have seven addition signs and look like this: 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus 5 plus 67 plus 8 plus 9. (7) The rows from left to right are: Row 1 – 2 9 4, Row 2 – 7 5 3, Row 3 – 6 1 8. (8) There are 720 ways to arrange the books. (9) One line should be drawn between 10 and 11 and 2 and 3. The other should be between 8 and 9 and 4 and 5.
 

MORE FUN WITH MATH RIDDLES AND PUZZLES

1. How can you make half of 12 equal to 7?

2. 8,549,176,320 is like no other number. Why is that?

3. I own a bakery. If I put one cake in each box, I have one cake too many. If I put two cakes per box, I have one box too many. How many cakes and boxes do I have?

4. In the schoolyard, there are 16 bicycles and tricycles. The total number of wheels is 39. How many tricycles are there?

5. Two girls are playing cards. They played 5 games. Each won the same number of games, how could this happen?

6. How many times can you subtract the number 5 from 20?

7. How many 9’s are there between 1 and 100?

8. You have 10 rose bushes and need to plant them in 5 rows. Each row has to have 4 bushes. How would you do this?

9. Use a mathematical term to answer these questions: (1) What did Noah build? (2) What do you say when a parrot is dead?

Answers: If you have found another answer to any of the problems, e-mail us your answer. (1) Write 12 as a Roman numeral, and draw a horizontal line through the middle. (2) It’s the only number having the names of all of its digits in alphabetical order. (3) 3 boxes and 4 cakes (4) 7 tricycles (5) They weren’t playing each other. (6) Once, after you subtract it once, the number is not 20 any more. (7) 20 (two 9’s in 99) (8) Plant the bushes in the shape of a star. (9) arc, polygon

Latest Riddles and Puzzles

 1: If there are 10 cookies and you take away two, how many do you have?

2: If two's company and three's a crowd, what are four and five?

3: Two mothers and two daughters ate exactly three apples. Each person ate an apple. How can this be?

4: Why is the longest nose in the world only 11 inches long?

5: Can you add just eights and get 1,000?6: You have 10 friends. You also have a wallet with $10. You give each of your friends $1; however, there is still $1 in the wallet. How can that be?

7: How much dirt may be removed from a hole that is 4 feet deep, 2 feet wide and 5 feet long?

8: Where does 9 plus 4 equal 1?

9: Why did a teacher group the letters A, E, F, H, I and K together and the letters B, C, D, G, J and O together?

10: If your mom gave you three cookies and said to eat one every half-hour, how long would they last?

 

 

Answers: If you have found another answer to any of the problems, e-mail us your answer. (1) 2 cookies, (2) 4+5= 9, (3) One person is a grandmother, so she is both a daughter and a mother.  (4)  If the 11-inch nose were any longer, it would be a foot.  (5) 888 + 88 + 8 +8 +8 = 1,000 (6) You gave one friend the wallet with the dollar in it. (7) None. Dirt cannot be removed from a hole. (8) On a clock. If you add four hours to 10 o'clock, you get 1 o'clock. (9) The first group of letters is formed with straight lines while the second group has both straight and curved lines. (10) One hour. 

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