LATERAL LOGIC PROBLEMS

The following questions will test your ability to think laterally. If you get more than
50% of these right you're certainly strong on your lateral thinking skills (or maybe
you're just good at puzzles!)

1. Name an ancient invention still in use in most parts of the world today that allows
people to see through walls.

2. A black man dressed all in black, wearing a black mask, stands at a crossroads in a
totally black-painted town. All of the streetlights in town are broken. There is no
moon. A black-painted car without headlights drives straight toward him, but turns
in time and doesn't hit him. How did the driver know to swerve?

3. An Australian woman was born in 1948 but

only celebrated her 16th birthday quite “Rabbit's clever," said Pooh
recently. Why? thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's
4. A five letter word becomes shorter when you clever."
add two letters to it. What is the word? "And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has
5. Brain."
There was a long silence.
6. How many grooves are there on an old LP "I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's
record? why he never understands
anything.”
7. How many animals of each species did Moses
take into the Ark?

8. In what sport are the shoes made of metal?

9. If a plane crashes on the Italian/Swiss border, where do you bury the survivors?

10. A man was pushed out of a small aeroplane, without a parachute but survived with
no injuries apart from a few bruises. How was this possible?

11. If a red house is made of red bricks, and a blue house is made of blue bricks, what is
a green house made of?

12. How can you throw a ball as hard as you can, and make it stop and return to you,
without hitting anything and with nothing attached to it?

13. In which direction is the bus to the right travelling?

14. What can you hold in your right hand, but not in your left?
15. A cowboy rode into
town on Friday, spent
one night there, and
left on Friday. How
do you account for
this?

16. What word is always

spelled wrongly?

17. What common

chemical compound
can be represented: H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O?

18. Jane gave Jill the following challenge: "If you sit down in that chair, I bet you five
pounds I can make you get out of it before I run around the chair three times," he
said.
"That's not fair," Jill said. "You'll just prick me with a pin or do something similar"
"Nope," Jane said. "I won't touch you, either directly or with any object. If you get
out of the chair, it'll be by your own choice."
Jill thought, accepted the challenge, and lo and behold, Jane won the bet. How did
she do it?

19. Four people try to get underneath one small umbrella, but nobody gets wet. How is
this possible?

20. What is the next letter in this sequence J F M A M J ?

21. A farmer owns a beautiful pear tree. He supplies the fruit to a nearby grocery shop.
The shop owner has called the farmer to see how much fruit is available for him to
purchase. The farmer knows that the main trunk has 24 branches. Each branch has
exactly 12 boughs and each bough has exactly 6 twigs. Since each twig bears one
piece of fruit, how many plums will the farmer be able to deliver?

22. A 6-foot tall man was holding a glass beaker above his head. He let it drop to the
carpet without spilling a single drop of water.

How could he manage to drop the glass from a height of six feet and not spill a drop
of water?

23. A fire officer has 12 matchsticks lying in front of her. She removes just one of them.
She now sees 9 in front of her. How is this possible ?

24. In many London Underground tube stations there are two up escalators but only one
going down. Why?

25. At a school 27 pupils wore red coats, 29 wore black coats and 40 wore blue coats.
How many pupils were wearing green coats?
26. If the day after the day before yesterday was Tuesday, and the
day before the day after tomorrow is Thursday, what day is today?
27. A man comes up to the border of a country on his motorbike. He has three large
sacks on his bike. The customs officer at the border crossing stop him and asks,
“What is in the sacks?”

“Sand,” answered the man.

The guard says, “We’ll see about that. Get off the bike.”

The guard takes the sacks and rips them apart; he empties them out and finds
nothing in them but sand. He detains the man overnight and has the sand analysed,
only to find that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags. The guard releases the
man, puts the sand into new bags, lifts them onto the man’s shoulders and lets him
cross the border.

A week later, the same thing happens. The customs officer asks, “What have you
got?”

“Sand,” says the man.

The officer does another thorough examination and again discovers that the sacks
contain nothing but sand. He gives the sand
back to the man, and the man again crosses If you're not failing every now and
the border. again, it's a sign you're not doing
anything very innovative.
This sequence of events repeats every day for
the next three years. Then one day, the man Woody Allen
doesn’t show up. The border official meets up
with him in a restaurant in the city. The officer The only man who never makes a
says, “I know you’re smuggling something mistake is the man who never does
and it’s driving me crazy. It’s all I think anything.
about. I can’t even sleep. Just between you
and me, what are you smuggling?” Theodore Roosevelt

What is the man smuggling? I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work.
28.
Thomas Alva Edison
 
Never be afraid to try, remember...
 
Amateurs built the Ark.
Score Professionals built the Titanic!
Check your answers below. If you got 15 or more right you are a true lateral thinking
genius!

For more examples of lateral thinking in jobhunting see our Creative Careers Search
page

Also see our First lateral thinking test and our Riddles test

Also see the logic puzzle at www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/problem-solving-skills.htm#logic

Answers

1. The window.
2. It was day time
3. She was born on February the 29th.
4. Short
5. Two: one on each side.
6. None. NOAH built the Ark.
7. Horse racing; or other horse sports.
8. You don't bury survivors!
9. The aeroplane was on the ground.
10. Glass
11. Go outside and throw it upwards.
12. Assuming that the bus is in the UK, the passenger doors much be on the opposite
side of the bus, so the bus is travellling to the right. If you are in the United States or
another country which drives on the right hand side of the road, the bus would be
travelling to the left. 90% of UK children who took a test on this got it right, even if,
sometimes, they did not know why!
13. Your left hand, forearm or elbow.
14. His horse was named Friday.
15. Wrongly
16. H20 or Water (H to O)
17. Jill sat down in the chair. Jane ran around it twice, then said, "I'll be back in a week
to run the third time around!
18. It’s not raining!
19. J (for
July).
They
are
the
first
letters
of the
months of the year.
20. None - it's a pear tree.
21. The glass was empty.
22. The remaining eleven matchsticks form the word NINE
23. People leave trains in a group, so all arrive at the escalators at the same time, but
tend to go down to the trains in a more even flow, hence you need less down
escalators.
24. 49 pupils. Letter A = 1, B= 2, C = 3 and so forth, so GREEN = 7 + 18 + 5 + 5 + 14
= 49
25. Wednesday (this one makes your brain hurt!)
26. Motorbikes!