Trick Questions and Riddles With Answers

Trick questions are fun right up until the answer depends on information nobody gave you. I kept these fair: the clue is complete, the twist is in the wording, and the answer should make you say “oh, come on” instead of “that makes no sense.”

How to Spot a Trick Question

Slow down when the question sounds too easy. Check whether it asks what remains, what you personally have, what happened first, or whether a familiar phrase is being used literally.

I also watch for hidden assumptions about age, jobs, direction, and time. A good trick question catches a shortcut in your thinking, not a fact you had no chance to know.

Classic Trick Questions

1. If you have six apples and take four, how many apples do you have?
   Answer: Four.
2. How many months have 28 days?
   Answer: All 12.
3. How many birthdays does one person have?
   Answer: One actual birth day.
4. Before Mount Everest was identified, was it still the highest mountain?
   Answer: Yes.
5. If an electric train travels west, which way does the smoke blow?
   Answer: It does not produce locomotive smoke from fuel combustion.
6. If a rooster lays an egg on a roof, which way does it roll?
   Answer: It does not. Roosters do not lay eggs.
7. How far can someone walk into a forest?
   Answer: Halfway.
8. Which is heavier, a pound of cotton or a pound of rocks?
   Answer: Neither.
9. How many times can you subtract 2 from 10?
   Answer: Once.
10. What is the first thing you light in a dark room with one match, a candle, and a fireplace?
    Answer: The match.
11. Where do you bury survivors of a crash?
    Answer: Nowhere.
12. Can a man go eight days without sleeping?
    Answer: Yes. He can sleep at night.
13. A driver goes the wrong way on a one-way street and is not stopped. Why?
    Answer: The person is walking.
14. A person falls from a 30-foot ladder and is unharmed. How?
    Answer: They fell from a low rung.
15. Two babies are born at the same minute to the same parents but are not twins. How?
    Answer: They are part of triplets or another multiple birth.

Wording Traps

16. A farmer has 25 cows. All but eight leave. How many remain?
    Answer: Eight.
17. A doctor gives you three pills and says take one every 30 minutes. How long until all are taken?
    Answer: One hour.
18. Two fathers and two sons eat three sandwiches, one each. How many people?
    Answer: Three.
19. A woman has five daughters, each with one brother. How many children?
    Answer: Six.
20. A person is born in room 1980 and dies in room 1980 at age 70. How?
    Answer: 1980 is a room number.
21. You enter a dark room with a candle, lamp, and fireplace. You have one match. What do you light first?
    Answer: The match.
22. What belongs to you but other people use more?
    Answer: Your name.
23. What can you give and still keep?
    Answer: Your word.
24. What becomes shorter when two letters are added?
    Answer: Short.
25. What is at the end of a rainbow?
    Answer: The letter W.
26. What can be broken without being touched?
    Answer: A promise.
27. What is so fragile that saying its name changes it?
    Answer: Silence.
28. What can be caught but never thrown?
    Answer: A cold.
29. What kind of room has no doors?
    Answer: A mushroom.
30. What kind of bank holds no money?
    Answer: A riverbank.

Math Trick Questions

31. What is 30 divided by one-half plus 10?
    Answer: 70.
32. A bat and ball cost $1.10 total, and the bat costs $1 more. Ball price?
    Answer: 5 cents.
33. What three positive integers have the same sum and product?
    Answer: 1, 2, and 3.
34. A clock strikes six times in five seconds. How long for 12 strikes?
    Answer: 11 seconds.
35. Two coins total 30 cents and one is not a nickel. What are they?
    Answer: A quarter and a nickel.
36. Five cats catch five mice in five minutes. At the same rate, how long for one cat to catch one mouse?
    Answer: Five minutes.
37. A dozen cookies are divided among four people. How many each?
    Answer: Three.
38. What is half of 10 plus 10?
    Answer: 15.
39. What number is odd but loses one letter and becomes even?
    Answer: Seven.
40. What two numbers add to 10 and multiply to 24?
    Answer: 4 and 6.
41. A clock is ten minutes fast and shows 4:20. What is the actual time?
    Answer: 4:10.
42. Three pairs of socks equal how many socks?
    Answer: Six.
43. What is 25% of 80?
    Answer: 20.
44. A number doubled and increased by 5 equals 21. What is it?
    Answer: 8.
45. Four people each shake hands once with every other person. How many handshakes?
    Answer: Six.

Lateral Trick Questions

46. A woman reads in total darkness. How?
    Answer: She reads Braille.
47. A ball returns without hitting anything. How?
    Answer: It is thrown straight upward.
48. A dog crosses a river dry with no bridge or boat. How?
    Answer: The river is frozen.
49. A woman asks for water, the server startles her, and she says thanks. Why?
    Answer: She had hiccups and the surprise stopped them.
50. A man leaves home, turns left three times, and meets two masked men at home. Where is he?
    Answer: A baseball field.
51. What can fill a room but take up no floor space?
    Answer: Light.
52. What grows as more is removed?
    Answer: A hole.
53. What can travel around the world in one corner?
    Answer: A stamp.
54. What can answer you without understanding you?
    Answer: An echo.
55. What is always coming but never remains “the future” once it arrives?
    Answer: The future becomes the present.
56. A person jumps from an airplane without a parachute and survives. How?
    Answer: The airplane is on the ground.
57. A person is sitting in a parked car moving at highway speed. How?
    Answer: The car is being transported on another vehicle.
58. A child is older than their uncle. Can that happen?
    Answer: Yes.
59. A person sees daylight in a room with no windows. How?
    Answer: Light enters through an open doorway or skylight.
60. A person is 20 years old but has celebrated only five February 29 birthdays. How?
    Answer: They were born on February 29.

Read the Question Literally

61. If you spell “silk” three times, what do cows drink?
    Answer: Water.
62. What color is an orange?
    Answer: Orange.
63. If you pass the person in second place in a race, what place are you in?
    Answer: Second.
64. If you overtake the last person in a race, what is wrong with the question?
    Answer: You cannot normally overtake the last person if you are behind them in the same race.
65. A farmer has 10 sheep and all but three leave. How many stay?
    Answer: Three.
66. If you take five books from a shelf, how many books do you have?
    Answer: Five.
67. What is the last letter in “question”?
    Answer: N.
68. What comes at the beginning of “answer”?
    Answer: A.
69. If today is Monday, what day is two days after tomorrow?
    Answer: Thursday.
70. If yesterday was Sunday, what day is tomorrow?
    Answer: Tuesday.

How to Write a Fair Trick Question

The trick should come from wording the solver can inspect, not a missing fact. “All but eight” is fair because every needed word is there.

I also avoid changing definitions midway through the answer. If “light” means illumination in the clue, the solution should not suddenly require an obscure technical meaning unless the clue points there.

For a group, ask people to explain what assumption fooled them. That turns the groan into a useful reasoning habit instead of just a punch line.

The easiest way to write a bad trick question is to hide a fact the solver needed. The easiest way to write a good one is to put every fact in plain sight and let normal assumptions do the hiding for you.