DON'T BE AN APRIL FOOL?

There is something of the April spirit in each of the 25 questions that follow. They are the 'kind that can lead your mind astray - you find yourself thinking along one line and find later that your first impressions were way off the mark. So read the questions carefully, and watch out for squirting flowers.

  1. How many three-cent stamps are in a dozen?


  2. The maker doesn't want it; the buyer doesn't use it; and the user doesn't see it. What is it?


  3. A woman in Singapore married ten different men from that country, yet she did not break any laws. None of these men died, and she never divorced. How was this possible?


  4. An electrician and a plumber were waiting in line for admission to the International Home Show. One of them was the father of the other's son. How could this be possible?


  5. Clara Clatter was born on December 27, yet her birthday is always in the summer. How is this possible?


  6. In what year did Christmas and New Year's fall in the same year?


  7. How many animals of each sex did Moses take on the Ark?


  8. Dobbin the horse is tied to a 40-foot rope. There is a haystack 50 feet away from him. Dobbin is able to eat the hay, yet the rope doesn't break or stretch in any way. How is this possible?


  9. A toad is at the bottom of a 20-foot well with very slippery sides. Once an hour he jumps up three feet and slips back two. At that rate, with no time off for sleep, how many hours will it take the toad to get out of the well?


  10. Ask most people what role Boris Karloff played in his most popular movie, and they will say, "Frankenstein." In fact, this answer is incorrect. Why?


  11. It's a freezing night, and you finally reach a mountain cabin that has been rented to you for the weekend. The electricity has been knocked out - there are no lights, and no heat. There is a fireplace with a stack of wood in it, a wood-burning stove, an oil lamp, and a candle. You search your pockets and find that you have a single wooden match. You look at the resources you have available. What will you light first?


  12. While walking through the stacks of a local library, you see on the binding of a book. "VOLIX." How should this be pronounced?


  13. A young woman we knows says that after she has a physical workout she can read through an entire issue of Penthouse in 90 minutes, but if she skips the workout and eats a pint of Haagen-Dazs chocolate-chip ice cream, it takes her an hour and a half to get through an issue. Why the difference?


  14. You are a bus driver on the Broadway line. There are ten passengers on the bus. At the first stop, five passengers get on and two get off. At the second stop, three passengers get on and one gets off. At the third stop, no passengers get on and two get off. Question: How old is the bus driver?


  15. Robert and Kathy played five games of backgammon. Robert won three games and lost two. Kathy also won three games and lost two. How is that possible?


  16. In most states, the commission of a certain crime is not punishable. However, the state can and often does punish a person for attempting to commit it. What's the crime?


  17. How many cubic feet of dirt are there in a hole two feet wide, 36 inches long, and one yard deep?


  18. What is unusual about this sentence: "Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz"?


  19. Some clocks have only two hands on them. Where there is a third hand added, what is it called?


  20. A customer in restaurant found a dead fly in his coffee. He sent the waiter back for a fresh cup. After taking one sip, he shouted, "This is the same cup of coffee I had before!" How did he know?


  21. How many times can you take 5 from 25?


  22. Elmer and Cosmo have the same father and the same mother. They were born on the same day of the same year. They look almost exactly alike. Yet they are not twins. How is this possible?


  23. While walking in a library, you see a book with "HOW TO JOG" on it binding. Since you're trying to get in shape and want to pick up any tip you can, you check the book out. When you get home you find that the book has absolutely nothing to do with physical fitness. What kind of of book did you check out?


  24. Is it correct to say that the yolk of an egg is white or that the yolk of an egg are white?


  25. Does the Roman Catholic church allow a man to marry his widow's sister?


  26. Whatever you answered to the above question, think again. According to Louis Philips in this recent book, 263 Brain Busters, there is an actual case of a man who married his widow's sister. How was it possible?


  27. A study was made of all the mechanical forms of transportation people use every day to get from their homes to work. What mode of transportation turned out to be the most common of all?


  28. I have a raw egg. How can I drop it five feet over a solid cement floor without breaking its shell? (There is no "cushion" on the floor.)


  29. A ship in port has a rope ladder that hangs over the side and into the water. The rungs on the ladder are exactly a foot apart, from center to center. At low tide, three runs ofthe ladder or underwater. How many rungs will be underwater at high tide, which is exactly three feet higher than low tide?


  30. How many times do the two hands of a clock cross each other in 12 hours? The hands are exactly together at noon, and again at about five minutes after one, and again at about 10 minutes after two, and so on. Warning: There's no trick answer here, but people have been known to disagree heatedly. This webpage cannot be responsible for any effect this puzzle has on your personal relationships.


For fools onlyClick here to find out

















































[ANSWERS]

  1. Twelve

  2. A coffin

  3. The lady was a justic of the peace

  4. They were husband and wife

  5. Clara lives in the Southern Hemisphere

  6. They fall in the same year every year. New Year's Day just arrives very early in the year and Christmas arrives very late in the same year.

  7. Moses took no animals. It was Noak on the Ark.

  8. The other end of the rope isn't tied to anything

  9. Eighteen hours. The usual answer is 20, since there seems to be a one-foot gain per hour. But at the end of the 17th hour, our toad would be three feet from the upper rim. In the next hour, the 18th, his three-foot jump will take him out of the well.

  10. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein - Dr. Victor Frankenstein - was the mad scientist who created him.

  11. The match.

  12. "Volume nine"

  13. There is no difference. Ninety minutes is an hour and a half.

  14. Since we said that "you" are the bus driver, the correct answer is your own age.

  15. They weren't playing against each other.

  16. Suicide.

  17. There is no dirt in the hole.

  18. The sentence is a pangram - it contains all the letters of the alphabet. The most famous pangram is probably "A quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," but that takes a full 34 letters to cover the necessary 26. The "jackdaws" sentence does it in 31. If abbreviations are allowed, our favourite pangram is: "Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D., bags few lynx." Attributed to Clement Wood, it does the job in 26 letters flat.

  19. The second hand.

  20. It was sweet. He had put sugar in the coffee before he found the dead fly.

  21. Once. After you've done that you're taking 5 from 20, 15, and so on.

  22. They are two members of a set of triplets.

  23. You took a volume of an encyclopedia carrying entries from words beginning with "how" to words beginning with "jog."

  24. Neither. The yolk of an egg is yellow.

  25. How can a dead man marry anyone?

  26. He married one woman, divorced her, married her sister, and then died. It is then true what he was once married to the sister of his widow.

  27. The elevator.

  28. I drop the egg from a height of six feet above the cement. After it calls five feet, it still hasn't broken.

  29. Three rungs. As the tide raises the ship, it raises the ladder with it.

  30. ?
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