Developmental questions for adults. Interesting and non-standard tasks for ingenuity

The following math problems, with their wits and answers, will test your ability to think outside the box. If you can answer correctly more than half of them, you really have a non-standard thinking. So check yourself!

Math Quiz Test Assignments

First come the easy questions, then their complexity increases.

1. When Bess was asked how old she was, she replied: "In two years I will be twice as old as I was five years ago." How old is she?

2. What weighs more? A pound of iron or a pound of copper?

3. You have 2 coins for a total of 11 kopecks, and the value of one of the coins is not 1 kopeck. What are these coins?

4. How much will it be if you divide 40 by half and add 10?

5. Tell, to the nearest cubic centimeter, how much land is in the pit 3 m x 2 m x 2 m?

6. The farmer had 15 cows, all but 8 were dead. How many cows does he have left?

7. Mother and her adult son in the amount of 66 years. The age of the mother, written in numbers in reverse order, is the age of the son. How old are they?

8. If a man and a half can eat a hot dog and a half in a minute and a half, how many minutes do 6 men eat 6 hot dogs?

9. Helen went to the supermarket to buy fruit. There were 3 options for the special offer:

• 10 oranges and 5 apples: 70 pence (savings - 10 pence);
• 10 apples and 10 apricots: 200 pence (savings - 40 pence);
• 30 oranges: 100 pence (savings - 20 pence).

How much will it cost 1 orange, 1 apple and 1 apricot at a regular price (without a special offer)?

10. The amount of water poured into the tank doubles every minute. The tank is filled in an hour. And when will it be half full?

11. There is a pillar in the lake. Half a pillar is buried in the ground at the bottom of the reservoir, another 1/3 pillar is in the water, and 7 feet are visible above the surface of the water. What is the total length of the post?

12. If every minute the hour hand moves 1/60 of a degree, how many degrees will it move in an hour?

13. I spent a third of my money on a guitar, half of the remaining amount on a microphone and a quarter of what was left after that, on a goat. What part of the original amount remained?

14. How can I take 1 from 19 and get 20?

15. Here is a list of animals and a code for each of them:

Cow: 1
  Chicken: 2
  Rooster: 4
  Cuckoo: 2

What code will be for the horse?

16. There are 60 sweets in the pot. The first person took one candy, and each next took more candies than the previous one, until the bank was empty. Name the largest number of people who could take candy from a jar.

17. At the University of Kent, 5 students attended a seminar on PRAVO, 9 a seminar on ART, and 5 a seminar on DRAMA. How many students attended the FILM workshop?

18. If you have a pizza with a thickness of “a” and a radius of “c”, then what is the volume of this pizza?

19. What took 19 years to get into?

20. 23 football teams participate in the knockout competitions. How many matches do they need to play to determine the winner?

21. How many degrees between the clocks at 3:15?

22. You have 8 bags of sugar. 7 weigh the same, 1 weighs less than the rest. You also have lever scales. As no more than 2 weighings, determine which bag weighs less than the rest?

23. There are 3 boxes. In one there are only apples, in the other - only oranges, and in the third there are both apples and oranges. The boxes are incorrectly marked so that the label on each box does not correspond to the actual content. How, taking without looking at one fruit from one box, mark all other boxes correctly?

24. 1/2 of 2/3 of 3/4 of 4/5 of 5/6 of 6/7 of 7/8 of 8/9 of 9/10 of 1,000 =?

25. How many times do the hands of a clock intersect in 24 hours?

Answers and solutions to test assignments

1. 12. Indeed, let Bess be now x years old, then the equation holds: x + 2 = 2 (x-5), whence x = 12.

2. They both weigh exactly a pound.

3. 10 kopecks and 1 kopeck. Other options are not suitable.

4. 90. Divide by half - the same as multiplying by 2.

5. Zero - it's a pit!

7. 42 and 24 years. (Someone may say that it can also be 51 and 15 years old. However, the assignment states that the son is an adult).

8. A minute and a half.

9. 30 oranges at a regular price cost 120 pence, therefore, 4 pence each. 10 oranges and 5 apples cost 80 pence, the price of oranges is 40 pence, which means apples cost 8 pence per piece. 10 apples and 10 apricots at a normal price cost 240 pence, apples cost 80 pence, so apricots cost 16 pence per piece. 1 apricot + 1 apple + 1 orange = 28 pence in total.

10. At the 59th minute.

11. Half of the pillar is buried in the ground. 1/3 is hidden under the water. Therefore, the ratio of the parts of the pillar buried in the dirt and hidden under the water = 1/2 + 1/3 = 3/6 + 2/6 = 5/6. which is visible above the surface = 1 - 5/6 = 1 / 6. Therefore, 1/6 post = 7 feet. The total length of the post is 42 feet.

12. 1 degree.

13. I spent 1/3 of the money on the guitar, I have 2/3 left. I spent half the remaining amount on the microphone, this is again 1/3. After that, I left 1/3 of the original amount of money. And I spent 1/4 of it on a goat. 1/4 of 1/3 is 1/12. Thus, I have left 3/4 of 1/3 of the original amount. 3/4 of 1/3 = 1/4 of the original amount. (1/3 = 4/12. 4/12 - 1/12 = 3/12. 3/12 = 1/4)

14. If you use Roman numerals, then, taking I from XIX (19 Roman numerals), you will get XX - 20 Roman numerals.

15. 3 ("and-go-go" - three syllables).

16. The first person takes 1 candy, the second 2, the third - 3, etc. 1+ 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 = 55, so the first 10 people can pick up at least 55 candies. So 11 people can not be.

17. 6 students (as many letters in the word FILMS).

18. pi * q * q * a = pizza.

19. Guinness Book of Records.

20. In a knockout competition, each team, with the exception of the winner, is defeated once, so the number of matches is 1 less than the number of teams. 23-1 = 22.

21. The answer is not 0 °, as you might first think. The minute hand will stop at 15 minutes (90 ° clockwise from the vertical), but the hour hand will pass 1/4 of the distance from 3 to 4 hours. Each hour is 30 ° (360/12), 1/4 hour is 7.5 °, therefore the hour hand will stop at 97.5 °. The difference of 7.5 ° between the arrows.

22. Set aside 2 bags. Weigh 3 bags against 3 more left. If they weigh the same, weigh 2 bags, which are set aside, and find out which one is heavier. If one bowl of scales with 3 bags is heavier, remove one bag from the side that is outweighed. Weigh the remaining two bags to find out which one is heavier. If they weigh the same, it becomes clear that the desired bag is the one that you put aside.

23. It is necessary to take without looking at one fruit from the box labeled "Apples and oranges." Since none of the tags correspond to the contents, only apples or oranges are in the box. Suppose you got an apple. So in this box, only apples. In one of the remaining boxes must be only oranges. One is labeled "Only apples," and the other is "Oranges only." Consequently, where it is written: “Only apples,” there are oranges, and both kinds of fruit are in the box labeled: “Only oranges”.

25. The minute hand will bypass the dial 24 times, but the hour hand will also make 2 turns. Therefore, the minute hand will overtake the hour 24 minus 2 = 22 times.

Decoding results

• 17 or more. If you have read all these math problems on the sharpness with the answers and were able to solve more than half of them, congratulations! This is an excellent result!
• 10 – 16 . Good result.
• Less than 10. You need more practice in solving mathematical problems on the sharpness.

Material prepared, Sergey Seliverstov

Task 1.

A father with a sly smile asks his first-grade son a question: give me the largest number.
  Having received the answer, he just shakes his head in surprise, not knowing what to say.
  What did the son answer?

Task 2.

What is the sign to put between the numbers 4 and 5,
  so that the result is more than four,
  but less than five?

Task 3.

There is a road on which only one car can drive.
  Two cars are driving along the road: one from the mountain, the other downhill.
  How do they disperse?

Task 4.

How many times can you subtract three from the damn dozen?

Task 5.

Two approached the river at the same time.
  The boat on which you can cross, can withstand only one person.
  And yet without help, everyone crossed over on this boat to the other side.
  How did they do it?

Task 6.

In the company of friends, it occurred to one to offer them a dispute:
- Guys, I now put the bottle in the middle of the room and crawl into it.
And he did it ... he won.
How did he do it?

Task 7.

On the table in a row are 6 glasses.
The first three are empty, and the last three are filled with water.
  How to make empty glasses and full alternate with each other, if you can touch only one glass (you can not push a glass with a glass)?

Task 8.

You participate in competitions and overtake a runner who occupies the second position.
  What is your position now?

Task 9.

Three swallows flew out of the nest.
  What is the probability that in 15 seconds they will be in the same plane?

Task 10.

They put the pencil on the floor and asked several people to jump over it.
But no one could do it. Why?

Answers to tasks on wit:

1.Thirty first (meaning the date of the month).

2. The comma.

3. And why should they leave?
  They are both down (downhill and downhill).

4. From the damn dozen, the number three can be deducted only once,
  first, since any further subtraction will be made from a smaller number.

5. They came to different banks of the river.

6. He crawled into her - into the room.

7. Take the fifth glass, pour the contents into the second glass and put the glass in place.

8. The second.

9.100%, because three points always lie on the same plane.

10. He was laid next to the wall (close).

Some tasks that are easily solved by children can be very difficult and even unbearable for adults. Similar tasks, the solution of which will require the use of logic, are waiting for you further.

  1. Four-digit numbers

Preschool children solve this problem in 5-10 minutes. Programmers - for 1 hour. Most people with higher education ... However, check for yourself. And try to be honest, do not rush to find out the ready answer (it will be at the end, under all other tasks).

Little hint: try to think outside the box.




  Do not figure it out? There are 2 more tips for you (read the first one first - if it doesn’t help, go to the second one).
  1) Remember who is the fastest to solve this problem? Preschoolers. And why? Think like them.
  2) Think "visually." This is not a math problem.

2. Parking

Another elementary question - this time from the Hong Kong test for admission to primary school. The "thoughtless" graduates of the kindergarten are given a decision of 20 seconds!

3. Numerical pyramid

Hello again from Singapore. Try to catch up in your mind with local third-graders who easily cope with the mathematical problem below. (But if you get stuck, do not worry much: as shown by the television survey, adults found it “difficult”, “too abstruse” and even “insoluble”!)

4. Chocolate box

And now fast forward to the United States. Here is one of the test assignments for ordinary Washington 7th graders (according to the local system, it is 12-13 years old).
  “There is 50 chocolates in a box. Of these, 30 with caramel, 25 with coconut, 10 with caramel and coconut, and the rest without filling.

Question: Which chart correctly reflects the contents of the box? "

5. Family ties

  And finally, a mystery that is not even related to mathematics. Nevertheless, it puzzles many adults, while children almost instantly give the correct answer!
  “Father and son have an accident. The father perishes on the spot. The son in critical condition is taken to the hospital for surgery. The surgeon looks at the child in horror and says: “I cannot operate it! This is my son!"

Question: How is this possible?

1. Four-digit numbers
The answer is: 2581 = 2
  In each group of 4 numbers, it was only necessary to count the closed circles. For example, the number 6 has one circle, the number 8 has two. So the number 6889 has six of them. And so on.

2. Parking
Answer: 87
  It was enough just to mentally turn the picture upside down.

3. Numerical pyramid
  Answer: D = 1345; E = 2440
First of all add two numbers in the bottom row: 198 + 263 = 461
  It turned out the amount is greater than the number that stands above them: 461\u003e 446
  Subtract less from the larger: 461 - 446 = 15
  In the same way, we count the other pairs and see that everywhere it turns out 15. Ta-dam! Here is the key to the solution.

4. Chocolate box
  Answer: diagram B
Simple arithmetic:
  How many chocolates with caramel? 30 - 10 = 20
  How many chocolates with coconut? 25 - 10 = 15
  How much chocolate is left without the filling? 50 - (20 + 15 +10) = 5

5. Family ties
Answer: the surgeon is the mother of the child.