These tricky brain teasers will sharpen your mind and put your problem-solving skills to the test. See how many you can figure out—without cheating!
58 Brain Teasers and Mind Puzzles That Will Leave You Stumped
Updated on May 09, 2025
A man pushes his car to a hotel and tells the owner he’s bankrupt. Why?
Answer: He’s playing Monopoly.
You are in a room that has three switches and a closed door….
You are in a room that has three switches and a closed door. The switches control three light bulbs on the other side of the door. Once you open the door, you may never touch the switches again. How can you definitively tell which switch is connected to each of the light bulbs?
Answer: Turn on the first two switches. Leave them on for five minutes. Once five minutes has passed, turn off the second switch, leaving one switch on. Now go through the door. The light that is still on is connected to the first switch. Whichever of the other two is warm to the touch is connected to the second switch. The bulb that is cold is connected to the switch that was never turned on.
I left my campsite and hiked south for 3 miles. Then I turned east and hiked for 3 miles. I then turned north and hiked for 3 miles, at which time I came upon a bear inside my tent eating my food! What color was the bear?
Answer: White. How do you get to the answer in this tricky animal riddle? The only place you can hike 3 miles south, then east for 3 miles, then north for 3 miles and end up back at your starting point is the North Pole. Polar bears are the only bears that live at the North Pole, and they are white.
A man is looking at a photograph of someone. His friend asks who it is. The man replies, “Brothers and sisters, I have none. But that man’s father is my father’s son.” Who was in the photograph?
Answer: His son.
What is special about these words: job, polish, herb?
Answer: They are pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized.
Forrest left home running. He ran for a while and turned left, ran the same distance and turned left again, and then ran the same distance and turned left again. When he got home, there were two masked men. Who were they?
Answer: The catcher and the umpire.
A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?
Answer: The river was frozen.
In 1990, a person is 15 years old. In 1995, that same person is 10 years old. How can this be?
Answer: The person was born in 2005 BCE.
A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any timepiece. Which has the most?
Answer: An hourglass. It has thousands of grains of sand.
What makes this number unique: 8,549,176,320?
Answer: It has each number, zero through nine, listed in alphabetical order.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a long one. Michael J. Fox has a short one. Madonna does not use hers. Bill Clinton always uses his. The pope never uses his. What is it?
Answer: Their surname.
What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short. That’s a literal and figurative short riddle. (Sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves.)
Your parents have six sons including you, and each son has one sister. How many people are in the family?
Answer: Nine—two parents, six sons and one daughter.
I am the beginning of sorrow and the end of sickness. You cannot express happiness without me, yet I am in the midst of crosses. I am always in risk yet never in danger. You may find me in the sun, but I am never out of darkness.
Answer: The letter S.
An Arab sheik is old and must leave his fortune to one of his two sons….
An Arab sheik is old and must leave his fortune to one of his two sons. He makes a proposition: Both sons will ride their camels in a race, and whichever camel crosses the finish line last will win the fortune for its owner. During the race, the two brothers wander aimlessly for days, neither willing to cross the finish line. In desperation, they ask a wise man for advice. He tells them something; then the brothers leap onto the camels and charge toward the finish line. What did the wise man say?
Answer: The rules of the race were that the owner of the camel that crosses the finish line last wins the fortune. The wise man simply told them to switch camels.
A man was walking in the rain. He was in the middle of nowhere. He had nothing and nowhere to hide. He came home all wet, but not a single hair on his head was wet. Why is that?
Answer: The man was bald.
Fourteen of the kids in the class are girls. Eight of the kids wear blue shirts. Two of the kids are neither girls or wear a blue shirt. If five of the kids are girls who wear blue shirts, how many kids are in the class?
Answer: 19. This one is a great brain teaser for kids.
Paul’s height is 6 feet, he’s an assistant at a butcher’s shop and he wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?
Answer: Meat.
The person who makes it has no need for it. The person who purchases it does not use it. The person who does use it does not know he or she is. What is it?
Answer: A coffin. If you have a thing for dark riddles like that, we have plenty of brain teasers in that vein to satisfy your morbid curiosity.
You’re escaping a maze, and there are three doors in front of you….
Answer: The door on the right. A lion that hasn’t eaten in three months would be dead.
What has cities, but no houses; forests, but no trees; and water, but no fish?
Answer: A map.
If I am holding a bee, what do I have in my eye?
Answer: Beauty. Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder (bee holder).
How can 8 + 8 = 4?
Answer: When you think in terms of time. 8 a.m. + 8 hours = 4 o’clock. As with many of these tricky brain teasers and logic puzzles, you have to shift your thinking to get to the answer!
The water level in a reservoir is low but doubles every day. It takes 60 days to fill the reservoir. How long does it take for the reservoir to become half full?
Answer: 59 days. How does this math riddle work? If the water level doubles every day, the reservoir on any given day was half the size the day prior. If the reservoir is full on day 60, that means it was half full on day 59, not on day 30.
A farmer needs to take a fox, a chicken and a sack of grain across a river….
Answer: The farmer must follow these steps.
- Take the chicken across the river.
- Come back with an empty boat.
- Take the grain across the river.
- Bring the chicken back.
- Take the fox across the river.
- Come back with an empty boat.
- Take the chicken across the river.
What is 3/7 chicken, 2/3 cat and 2/4 goat?
Answer: Chicago.
A red house is made from red bricks. A blue house is made from blue bricks. A yellow house is made from yellow bricks. What is a green house made from?
Answer: Glass.
Why is the letter F like death?
Answer: Because without it, life is a lie, or it makes life a lie.
A man describes his daughters, saying, “They are all blonde but two; all brunette but two; and all redheaded but two.” How many daughters does he have?
Answer: Three. A blonde, a brunette and a redhead. If you like this brain teaser, try the “Mr. Smith had four daughters” riddle.
If you have a 7-minute hourglass and an 11-minute hourglass, how can you boil an egg in exactly 15 minutes?
Answer: To boil the egg in exactly 15 minutes, follow these four steps.
- Start both hourglasses as you start boiling the egg.
- After the 7-minute hourglass runs out, turn it over to start it again.
- Four minutes later, when the 11-minute hourglass runs out, turn the 7-minute hourglass again.
- Wait for the 7-minute hourglass to run out, which will take another 4 minutes and get you to exactly 15 minutes of boiling time.
How far can a squirrel run into the woods?
Answer: Halfway. After that, he’s running back out of the woods.
There is a word in the English language in which the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four signify a great man, and the whole word, a great woman. What is the word?
Answer: Heroine.
Guess the next three letters in the series GTNTL.
Answer: I, T, S. The complete sequence is the first letter of every word in the sentence.
What is next in this sequence of numbers: 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, ______?
Answer: 13112221. Each sequence of numbers is a verbal representation of the sequence before it. Thus, starting with 1, the next sequence would be “one one,” or “11.” That sequence is followed by “two one,” or “21,” and so on.
You are in a place called Wally’s World and there is only one law. There is a mirror, but no reflection. There is pizza with cheese, but not sausage. There is pepper, but no salt. There is a door, yet no entrance or exit. What is the law?
Answer: Each word in Wally’s World must contain double letters.
Four people arrive at a river with a narrow bridge that can hold only two people at a time….
Answer: Yes, they can cross in exactly 15 minutes. The group of four must follow these three steps in this math puzzle.
- First, A and B cross the bridge, and A brings the light back. This takes 3 minutes.
- Next, C and D cross, and B brings the light back. This takes another 10 minutes.
- Finally, A and B cross again. This takes another 2 minutes.
During which month do people sleep the least?
Answer: February. (There are usually fewer nights in February.)
In my hand, I have two coins that are newly minted. Together, they total 30 cents. One isn’t a nickel. What are the coins?
Answer: A quarter and a nickel.
Find a number less than 100 that is increased by one-fifth of its value when its digits are reversed.
Answer: 45. (1/5 of 45 = 9, and 9 + 45 = 54)
Which three letters can frighten a thief away?
Answer: ICU.
Four cars come to a four-way stop, all coming from a different direction. They can’t decide who got there first, so they all go forward at the same time. They do not crash into each other, but all four cars go. How is this possible?
Answer: They all made right-hand turns.
Is the capital of Kentucky pronounced Louisville or Luee-ville?
Answer: Neither. The capital is Frankfort.
You’re in a dark room with a candle, a wood stove and a gas lamp. You have only one match. What do you light first?
Answer: The match.
Put a coin into an empty bottle, and insert a cork into the neck. How can you remove the coin without removing the cork or breaking the bottle?
Answer: Push the cork down into the bottle. Then shake the coin out.
What letter comes next in the following sequence? D R M F S L T_
Answer: D. Each letter represents one note in the diatonic musical scale: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do.
I have a large money box, 10 inches wide and 5 inches tall. Roughly how many coins can I place in my money box until it is no longer empty?
Answer: Just one, after which it will no longer be empty.
What do an island and the letter t have in common?
Answer: They are both in the middle of water.
What is unusual about the following words: revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven?
Answer: To solve this word puzzle, take the first letter of each word and place it at the end. It will spell the same word backward.
How can a man who shaves several times a day still sport a long beard?
Answer: He’s a barber.
What fastens two people yet touches only one?
Answer: A wedding ring.
Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening?
Answer: Man. It’s one of the most famous riddles in history: He crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two feet as an adult and walks with a cane as an old man.
What rocks but does not roll?
Answer: A rocking chair.
An elevator is on the ground floor. There are five people in the elevator including me….
An elevator is on the ground floor. There are five people in the elevator including me. When the lift reaches the first floor, one person gets out and two people get in. The lift goes up to the second floor; three people get out, and five people get in. It then goes up to the next floor; no one gets out, but 12 people get in. Halfway up to the next floor, the elevator cable snaps and crashes to the ground. Everyone else dies in the elevator except me. How did I survive?
Answer: I got off on the first floor.
Which word logically comes next in this sequence? Spots, tops, pots, opts …
Answer: Stop. All the words are anagrams of one another.
Which tire doesn’t move when a car turns right?
Answer: A spare tire.
What four-letter word can be written forward, backward or upside down but still be read from left to right?
Answer: Noon.
Mr. Jenkins is trying to find a butler he can really trust….
Mr. Jenkins is trying to find a butler he can really trust. Out of the four candidates—James, Hudson, Paul and Steven—he knows that two are honest and the other two are compulsive liars. From what each one of them says, can you work out which two are the liars?
James: “Neither Paul nor Hudson tells the truth.”
Hudson: “If Steven is a liar, then James is trustworthy.”
Paul: “If, and only if, James is not an honest person, then Steven also has a rather loose attitude to the truth.”
Steven: “What Paul said is untrue.”
Answer: James and Paul are the two liars.
It’s not easy to figure out who’s who when the Brewer family gets together….
It’s not easy to figure out who’s who when the Brewer family gets together. The brother of Nick’s uncle Manny is named Mark. Lisa’s grandparents are Nick’s parents. Mark is married to Lisa’s grandma. The children of Angela’s daughter Sandra are named Lisa and Sasha. So who is Angela’s brother-in-law?
Answer: Manny is Angela’s brother-in-law.
If you’re loving these clever brain teasers, see if you can solve Einstein’s riddle next—only 2% of people can do it. Are you up to the challenge?
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