1. How many birthdays does the average Malaysian have in his/her lifetime?
A. 1
B. 60 ~ 70
C. > 70
D. I don’t know.

2. Some months have 30 days, some have 31 days. How many have 28 days?
A. 1
B. 6
C. 12
D. I have no idea.

3. If there are 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. Don’t ask me any maths.

4.   We know there are twelve 1-cent stamps in a dozen, but how many 3-cent stamps are there in a dozen?
A. 3
B. 4
C. 12
D. I said no maths!

5. I had to change flight 2 times at different airports before I finally flew into Buenos Aires. How many airports did I go through?
A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. I don’t travel.
6. How many animals of each species did Moses bring into the ark?
A. 0
B. 1
C. 2
D. Nothing on religion, please.

7. There are ______ things wroong with this questian.
A. 0
B. 1
C. 3
D. None of the above.

8. What is the minimum number of ducks that can swim in the following formation : 2 ducks behind a duck, 2 ducks in front of a duck, and a duck in between 2 ducks?
A. 3
B. 5
C. 7
D. Very confusing!

9. If 3 cats can kill 3 rats in 3 minutes, how many minutes will it take for 100 cats to kill 100 rats?
A. 3
B. 33 1/3
C. 100
D. Very violent!

10. A shepherd had 19 sheep. All but 9 died. How many did he have left?
A. 0
B. 9
C. 10
D. Never been a shepherd!

11. 37 crows were sitting on a tree. A hunter shot 1 down. How many birds were left on the tree?
A. 0
B. 36
C. 37
D. Any clues?

12. A rooster laid 3 eggs in the morning and 6 in the afternoon. But 4 of them were stolen by the fox. How many eggs were left?
A. 0
B. 5
C. 9
D. Foxes don’t eat eggs, I think.

13. Divide 30 by 1/2 and add 5. What do you get?
A. 20
B. 35
C. 65
D. Too many maths questions!

14. The temple bell was sounded at an interval of 3 seconds between every 2 gongs. How many seconds did it take to sound 10 gongs?
A. 27
B. 30
C. 33
D. Never heard a temple bell!

15. There are 10 blue socks and 10 red socks in a bag. It is pitch-black, you don’t have a light, and you can’t see a thing. What is the minimum number of socks you must draw from the bag to be sure of getting a matching pair?
A. 2
B. 3
C. 10
D. 20, to be really sure!

16. You have a round cake. What is the minimum number of cuts in order to get 8 equal pieces?
A. 3
B. 4
C. 8
D. Depends on the cake’s size.

17. How much dirt is there in a hole measuring 1/2 meter by 1/2 meter by 1/2 meter?  Answer in cubic meters.
A. 0
B. 1/8
C. 1 1/2
D. Too 'deep’ for me!

18. I went to bed at 8pm, wound up my clock and set the alarm to sound at 9 o'clock in the morning. How many hours of sleep would I get before being awakened by the alarm?
A. 0
B. 1
C. 13
D. No alarm can wake me!

19. A child playing on the beach had 6 1/6 sand piles in one place and 3 1/3 in another. If he put them together, how many sand piles would he have?
A. 1
B. 9 1/2
C. 11
D. He hasn’t learned to count!

20. Finally, yet another maths question : compute 3 + 4 times 5 + 2
A. 14
B. 25
C. 49
D. I give up!
 

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Answers to Queer Quiz

1. Answer: (A) 1
Everyone is born once in his/her lifetime, and so we only have one birthday. What happens every year is that we celebrate or commemorate our birthday as we become a year older.

2. Answer: (C) 12
Every month has 28 days, or more. If the question had asked how many months have only 28 days, the answer would have been 1 (in a non-leap year, of course).

3. Answer: (B) 2
The question says that you take away 2 apples, and so you have 2 apples with you.

4. Answer: (C) 12
A dozen of anything, whether apples or 3-cent stamps, is 12.

5. Answer: (C) 4
The airport I departed from, plus 2 airports where I changed flights, plus the airport where I arrived. That makes 4 airports. Incidentally, traveling to some smaller cities in Europe or USA often requires me to do just that, especially when I need to take a shuttle flight from KLIA to Changi Airport, to catch a long-distance SIA flight. Has anyone amongst you ever experienced the need to go through 5 airports to get somewhere?

6. Answer: (A) 0
Moses did not take any animal into any ark. It was Noah. For a really trivial fact and speaking of Noah, did he have to take 2 animals of each species into the ark? Actually for some species, albeit very few, only 1 animal would be enough. If you know your biology well, you would be aware that there is such a thing as asexual reproduction in lower animals. Hermaphrodites such as flatworms do not need a partner to reproduce. Apparently, asexual reproduction also occurs in insects such as aphids and in a few unusual vertebrates such as whiptail lizards.

7. Answer: (D) None of the above
There are 2 obvious spelling mistakes in the sentence. That’s 2 things wrong. The answer is therefore ‘none of the above’. Some may claim that there is a third thing wrong with the question, in the sense that the correct answer is not given (that ‘none of the above’ is not really an answer). If so, then the answer should be (C) – 3 things wrong. But then if there is now a correct answer as in (C), then the basis of the third wrong thing no longer stands. Hence, we are back to just 2 things wrong.

8. Answer: (A) 3
1 duck in front, 1in the middle, and 1 at the back. This will satisfy the last condition of ‘a duck in between 2 ducks’.

9. Answer: (A) 3
If 3 cats can kill 3 rats in 3 minutes, it follows that 1 cat will still take 3 minutes to kill 1 rat. Hence 100 cats will also take 3 minutes to kill 100 rats.

10. Answer: (B) 9
‘All but 9 died’ means that 9 sheep survived.

11. Answer: (A) 0
The sound of the gunshot would have driven all the birds away. A similar riddle goes like this: there are 10 cats on a boat; 1 cat jumps into the river, how many cats are left on the boat? The answer is 0, because they are all copycats.

12. Answer: (A) 0
Roosters don’t lay eggs.  Hens do.

13. Answer: (C) 65
Try using a calculator and key in 30 / 0.5 + 5. You will get 65.

14. Answer: (A) 27
 There are 9 equal intervals of 3 seconds between 10 gongs. Hence total time taken would be 9 x 3 = 27 minutes.

15. Answer: (B) 3
If you are lucky, after 2 draws you get a matching pair. If you are not so lucky, after 2 draws you end up with 2 socks of different colours – one blue and one red. In this case, on the third draw the third sock will definitely match either the blue or the red one you already have.

16. Answer: (A) 3
       First do a vertical cut through the center of the cake.
       Next do another vertical cut perpendicular to the first
       cut. The third cut – this calls for lateral thinking – is a
       horizontal cut  parallel to the plane of the table.
       Alternatively, you could do 1 vertical cut and 2
       horizontal cuts.

For a follow-up question, what is the minimum number of cuts to get 7 equal pieces (not necessarily of equal shape)? I believe 4 cuts would suffice.

17. Answer: (A) 0
Theoretically a hole is empty and you are not expected to find anything in there. The size of the hole is ‘immaterial’ (pun intended).

18. Answer: (B) 1
From the question, you should realize that this is an old-fashioned wind-up clock and not a digital one. He went to sleep at 8pm, and set the alarm at 9. The clock’s alarm would sound 1 hour later.

19. Answer: (A) 1
If he puts all those piles together, he gets 1 big pile.

20. Answer: (F) 25
Sorry about the typo in this question, but it doesn’t affect the problem posed. Based on the BODMAS rule, we were taught to do division and multiplication first before addition and subtraction. Hence 4 x 5 = 20 comes first, then 20 + 3 + 2 = 25. The fact that the symbol ‘x’ is replaced by the word ‘times’ can be misleading for some people.