Random Puzzles 

Workings

Hint
A fathom is 6 feet.

Answer
Hours in a month.

Reasoning
A fathom is 6 feet, which is 1.8288 metres.

So there are 1000 ÷ 1.8288 ≈ 546.8 fathoms in a kilometre.

The shortest month has 28 x 24 hours = 672.

So even the shortest month has more hours than there are fathoms in a kilometre.

Workings

Hint
How many yellow sweets are there, how many sweets in total?

Answer
1 in 25 = 4 percent.

Reasoning
In total, there are 114 + 35 + 67 + 9 = 225 sweets.

There are 9 yellow sweets, so the probability is 9 ÷ 225 = 0.04 = 4% = 1 in 25.

Workings

Hint
Remember that there are 12 inches in a foot.

Answer
I asked for 9 foot 2 inches (110 inches) and my friend brought me 2 foot 9 inches (33 inches).

Reasoning
I asked my friend to buy me A feet and B inches, which is a total of 12A + B inches.

He accidentally bought me B feet and A inches, which is 12B + A inches.

We know that 12B + A is actually only 30% of what I wanted, so:

     12B + A = 0.3 x (12A + B)

Multiply throughout by 10:

  120B + 10A = 3 x (12A + B)

  120B + 10A = 36A + 3B

        117B = 26A

           B = 26A ÷ 117

Don't forget that A and B can only be integers, and between 0 and 11.

Since 26 x A has to be at least 117, the lowest possible value for A is 5. We can check the remaining possibilities.
 5 x 26 = 130
 6 x 26 = 156
 7 x 26 = 182
 8 x 26 = 208
 9 x 26 = 234 (*)
10 x 26 = 260
11 x 26 = 286

The only number wholly divisible by 117 is 234, which means that A = 9, and B = 2.

So, I originally asked for 9 feet 2 inches.

Workings

Hint
You would probably never try this.

Answer
An umbrella.