Difficulty – Easy

Easy brain teasers and puzzles

Difficulty - Easy, Riddles and Lateral Thinking

Solitary Word

I am a solitary word.

If I lose my first letter, I remain the same.

If I lose my first letter again, I still remain the same.

What am I?

View Solution

Difficulty - Easy, Rebus

Rebus Puzzle 1

What common word or phrase is this rebus referring to?

 T  M  C
 A  U  O
 H  S  M
 W  T  E

Solution

What goes up must come down

Difficulty - Easy, Riddles and Lateral Thinking, Simple Math

Missing Dollar Riddle

The missing dollar riddle is a classic brain teaser that can trip up even savvy puzzle solvers:

Three friends split the cost of a hotel room. They are charged $30, so each of them pays $10.

Later the hotel manager realized the room only cost $25 instead of $30. The manager brings $5 to reimburse the friends.

The manager finds it hard to split $5 three ways, so he gives the friends $1 each, and keeps $2 for himself.

But wait – each friend paid $9, for a total of $27, and the manager pocketed $2. That’s 27 + 2 = 29, whereas they originally handed over $30. Where did the missing dollar go?

View Solution

Difficulty - Easy, Physics and Science

Throwing a Ball

When you throw a ball straight up, does it spend more time going up, more time coming down, or the same time going up and down – taking into account both gravity and air resistance?

Difficulty - Easy, Interview Brain Teasers, Probability

A small company is losing money and the boss is looking for ways to cut costs. The boss is a foolish gambler, so he offers two employees the choice of either taking flat 10% pay cut, or playing the following coin flip game for each paycheck:

The employees each flip a fair coin – 50% heads and 50% tails; the boss will ensure they are not pulling any tricks.
They can see their own outcome but not the outcome of the other employee’s coin flip. They must then guess the outcome of the other employee’s coin flip.
If at least one of them guesses correctly, they get their full paycheck.
If both of them guess incorrectly, they get nothing.

The two employees take some time to work out a strategy, and then confidently accept the offer to play the coin flip game.

What strategy did they come up with that made them confident the coin flip game will give them more money?

Difficulty - Easy, Geometry

Unclear Perimeter

What is the perimeter of the outer rectangle? All angles shown are right angles.

Chess, Difficulty - Easy

Queen’s Mini Tour

Starting from this position, can the queen touch or pass through all nine highlighted squares in just four standard chess moves?

Difficulty - Easy, Word Puzzles

Complete the Words

P _ _ _ N T
D E _ _ _ ST
S T _ _ _
C _ _ _ E R

Which 3-letter word can be inserted into all four lines above to form complete words?

Difficulty - Easy, Interview Brain Teasers, Number Theory

Flipping Every N-th

There are 100 face-down cards. The first person that passes by flips over every card, the 2nd person that passes by flips over every 2nd card, and so forth – the n-th person that passes by flips over every n-th card. Before you know it, 100 people have passed by.

After all 100 people have passed by, which cards are face-up and which are face-down?

Fun fact, this was an actual brainteaser given to me in the first round interview for a hedge fund internship back in 2011.

Preparing for a brain teaser interview? Check out our ultimate guide to brain teaser interviews.

Difficulty - Easy, Game Theory and Game Strategies, Interview Brain Teasers, Logic Puzzles

Rigging a Vote

There are five candidates participating in an unusual election. There are four rounds of voting, and only two candidates participate in each round, with the winner moving on and the loser dropping out. This means first candidate 1 will run against candidate 2, then the winner will run against candidate 3, and so on, with the winner of the last round being elected.

Polling shows that Stephen Hawking is not very popular. There are five equal-sized groups in the voting population, and polling shows they prefer the candidates in the following order:

Group 1: Einstein > Newton > Maxwell > Hawking > Curie
Group 2: Newton > Curie > Maxwell > Einstein > Hawking
Group 3: Curie > Maxwell > Einstein > Newton > Hawking
Group 4: Einstein > Newton > Hawking > Curie > Maxwell
Group 5: Newton > Maxwell > Einstein > Hawking > Curie

But Hawking has a secret weapon – he gets to choose the order the candidates participate in each round.

Is there a way for Hawking to organize the rounds such that he wins?