Puzzle 1
How many squares, of any size, are on a board divided up into 6 squares by 6 squares?
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Hint
How many 1 x 1 squares are there?
Answer
91 squares.
Reasoning
Squares of size:
1 x 1 = 36
2 x 2 = 25
3 x 3 = 16
4 x 4 = 9
5 x 5 = 4
6 x 6 = 1
Total = 36 + 25 + 16 + 9 + 4 + 1 = 91.
Puzzle 2
Sam takes 20 days to build a wall.
Taylor and Kelly each take 10 days to build a wall.
How long will it take the three of them to build a wall if they work together?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
How many walls can be built in 20 days?
Answer
4 days.
Reasoning
In 20 days, Sam can build 1 wall, and Taylor and Kelly can each build 2 walls.
So, in 20 days, 5 walls can be built.
Therefore, one wall will take 4 days to build.
Puzzle 3
At the recent BrainBashers code-breaking convention, Billie Brisk won the speed contest.
The following sentence was deciphered in a record time of 123 seconds.
What was the well-known saying, and how has it been encrypted?
MOOT CYNA SKOO IOPS EHTL TORB YCBH
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
The first word begins with T.
Answer
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Reasoning
The saying has been broken down into blocks of 4, the last block has been filled with dummy letters. Each block has then been reversed.
Double-Checking
Start with:
TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH
Group together:
TOOMANYCOOKSSPOILTHEBROTH
Split into groups of 4 letters:
TOOM ANYC OOKS SPOI LTHE BROT H
Add 3 random characters:
TOOM ANYC OOKS SPOI LTHE BROT HBCY
Reverse each group of 4 letters:
MOOT CYNA SKOO IOPS EHTL TORB YCBH
Puzzle 4
Eddie The Elephant can eat 110 bananas in 10 minutes, and Hugo The Hippo can eat 56 bananas in 8 minutes.
How long will it take Eddie and Hugo to eat 954 bananas?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
Work out how many each can eat in one minute.
Answer
53 minutes.
Reasoning
In one minute, Eddie eats 11 bananas (= 110 ÷ 10).
In one minute, Hugo eats 7 bananas (= 56 ÷ 8).
So in total, they eat 18 bananas every minute.
So it will take 954 ÷ 18 = 53 minutes.