Brain Teasers with Answers
A puzzle on the card, a minute of quiet thinking, and the answer one tap away.
- Time
- 10–30 min
- Players
- One or more people
- Best for
- Kitchen-table evenings, game nights and team breaks
- Deck
- 150 teasers in 6 categories
How to use these brain teasers
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the teaser on the top card aloud, slowly, and give everyone time to work it out.
- Tap “Show answer”, then “Next teaser”, or swipe the card away, for another. Teasers do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save a teaser on this device, or tap “Make a 10-teaser list” to copy teasers with their answers.
When to play brain teasers
A brain teaser asks for a few minutes of real thinking, so it suits a table where people have time to sit, sketch and argue it out. The answer sits under every card, so nobody stays stuck for long.
After dinner at the kitchen table
With the plates cleared, read a Logic puzzle like the three mislabeled boxes, hand around a pen and see who cracks it first.
A game night warm-up
Five minutes of Trick questions and Quick math, like the bat and the ball, gets everyone talking before the board games come out.
A team break
Share one Patterns and sequences card in the team chat or at lunch and collect answers until the afternoon, then reveal it.
Ways to play with these brain teasers
Quiet minute, then answers
The reader shares a teaser and repeats it once. Everyone thinks in silence for a minute, then says an answer at the same time, or writes it down first. Only then does the reader tap “Show answer”. The quiet minute keeps the fastest talker from solving every card for the room.
Explain it to win it
For Logic puzzles and Quick math, a bare answer is not enough: the solver has to say how they got it, in a sentence or two. If someone gets the answer by a different route that still works, it counts. Half the fun is hearing two people reach the same answer two ways.
Pairs against the clock
Split the group into pairs and give each pair one card from the same category. Each pair has three minutes to agree on an answer, then reads its teaser and answer to the rest. Lateral thinking and Patterns and sequences work well here, since two heads spot the catch faster.
Tips for a good brain teaser round
- Open with Trick questions or Word and letter teasers for quick laughs, and save Logic puzzles for when the group is settled and ready to think.
- Keep a pen and a scrap of paper on the table. Puzzles about who sits where or which day comes next are easier with a quick sketch.
- For Lateral thinking, let the group ask the reader yes-or-no questions before revealing the answer. The reader peeks at the answer first and replies only “yes”, “no” or “doesn’t matter”.
All 150 brain teasers by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and play there.
Logic puzzles
Who sits where, who is telling the truth and which box to open, all worked out by careful reasoning.
- Leap years usually come every four years. Which year after 2096 is the next one?Answer: 2104 – 2100 is skipped
- A dark drawer holds loose black socks and white socks. How many must you pull out to be sure of a matching pair?Answer: three
- Boxes labeled apples, oranges and mixed are all labeled wrong. Taste one fruit from one box to fix them. Which box?Answer: the mixed one
- A snail climbs a 10-foot wall: up 3 feet by day, down 2 by night. Which day does it reach the top?Answer: day 8
- Knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie. Which of them could ever say, “I am a knave”?Answer: neither of them
- Knights always tell the truth; knaves always lie. A says, “We’re both knaves.” What are A and B?Answer: A is a knave, B a knight
- If two days ago was Friday, what day is the day after tomorrow?Answer: Tuesday
- If the day after tomorrow is Saturday, what day was yesterday?Answer: Wednesday
Show all 25 in Logic puzzlesShow fewer
- Ana, Bo and Cy own a cat, a dog and a fish. Bo’s pet lives in water. Ana’s never barks. Who has the dog?Answer: Cy
- Ana isn’t first, Bo isn’t last, and Cy finishes right behind Ana in a three-person race. What’s the order?Answer: Bo, Ana, Cy
- Four people stand in line. Dee is ahead of Al, Al is ahead of Cam, and Bea is behind Cam. Who is second?Answer: Al
- Someone ate the last cookie. Ana: “Bo did.” Bo: “Cy did.” Cy: “Bo is lying.” Only one is lying. Who ate it?Answer: Bo
- Each brother has as many brothers as sisters; each sister, twice as many brothers as sisters. How many of each?Answer: 4 brothers, 3 sisters
- A man points at a portrait: “I have no siblings, but that man’s father is my father’s son.” Who is in it?Answer: his son
- My birthday month has 30 days, and its name starts with a vowel. Which month is it?Answer: April
- A month has 31 days and starts on a Friday. Which days of the week come up five times?Answer: Friday, Saturday and Sunday
- Of nine coins that look alike, one is heavier. How many balance-scale weighings always find it?Answer: two – three against three first
- Ana is taller than Bo but shorter than Cy. Dee is shorter than Bo. Who is the second shortest?Answer: Bo
- Al, Bo and Cy get hot tea, hot coffee and cold juice. Al skips hot drinks. Bo skips tea. What does Cy get?Answer: tea
- A red, a blue and a yellow book sit side by side. Blue isn’t next to yellow. Which is in the middle?Answer: red
- One of Ana, Bo and Cy is a pilot. Cy can’t fly, and Ana lives next door to the pilot. Who is it?Answer: Bo
- Ana, Bo, Cy and Dee sit around a square table. Ana faces Bo, and Cy is on Ana’s left. Who is on her right?Answer: Dee
- Ana: “Bo is lying.” Bo: “Cy is lying.” Cy: “Ana and Bo are both lying.” Who is telling the truth?Answer: only Bo
- Ana is three years older than Bo, and Bo is two years younger than Cy. Who is the oldest of the three?Answer: Ana
- The day before yesterday I was 25. Next year I’ll turn 28. What is today’s date?Answer: January 1 – my birthday is December 31
Quick math
Numbers with a catch, like the bat and the ball or five machines making five widgets, no pencil needed.
- A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?Answer: 5 cents
- Five machines make five widgets in five minutes. How long do 100 machines take to make 100 widgets?Answer: 5 minutes – one each
- Lily pads double every day and cover a whole pond on day 48. On which day did they cover half?Answer: day 47
- What is the angle between the hands of a clock at 3:15?Answer: 7.5 degrees – the hour hand moves too
- Today is Wednesday. What day of the week will it be 100 days from now?Answer: Friday
- Six friends meet, and each shakes hands once with every other friend. How many handshakes is that?Answer: 15
- Ana buys a vase for $60, sells it for $70, buys it back for $80, then sells it for $90. Her profit?Answer: $20
- Divide 30 by one half and add 10. What do you get?Answer: 70
Show all 25 in Quick mathShow fewer
- A brick weighs 2 pounds plus half a brick. How much does the whole brick weigh?Answer: 4 pounds
- Add these up in your head: 1,000 + 40 + 1,000 + 30 + 1,000 + 20 + 1,000 + 10.Answer: 4,100
- Write eleven thousand, eleven hundred and eleven as a single number.Answer: 12,111
- A price goes up 50%, then down 50%. Is it back where it started?Answer: no – it’s 25% lower
- How many times does the digit 9 appear when you write out the numbers from 1 to 100?Answer: 20
- A car drives 30 miles at 30 mph, then 30 more miles at 60 mph. What is its average speed?Answer: 40 mph
- Which is bigger: 2 to the power of 10, or 10 to the power of 3?Answer: 2 to the 10th, which is 1,024
- A clock takes 5 seconds to strike six. How many seconds does it take to strike twelve?Answer: 11 seconds
- You cut a 10-foot board into 1-foot pieces, one cut a minute. How long does the job take?Answer: 9 minutes
- A straight fence is 30 feet long, with a post every 3 feet, including both ends. How many posts are there?Answer: 11
- Pat is 40, twice Sam’s age. In how many years will Pat be one and a half times Sam’s age?Answer: 20 years
- Which is more: 20% of 50, or 50% of 20?Answer: they’re equal, 10 each
- How many minutes are there in one week?Answer: 10,080
- Multiply together all ten digits on a phone keypad. What is the answer?Answer: zero
- What do you get if you add up every whole number from 1 to 100?Answer: 5,050 – fifty pairs of 101
- You save 1 cent on day one and double it every day. How much do you save on day ten?Answer: $5.12
- Counting every size, from one square to the whole board, how many squares are on a chessboard?Answer: 204
Lateral thinking
Odd situations with a simple explanation, like a ring dropped into coffee that comes out dry.
- Two people play five checkers games. Each wins the same number, with no ties. How?Answer: they played other people
- Five people each take an apple from a basket of five, yet one apple stays in the basket. How?Answer: the last took the basket too
- How can you cut a round cake into eight equal pieces with only three straight cuts?Answer: two cuts across, one sideways through the middle
- How can you add 2 to 11 and get 1?Answer: on a clock – 2 hours after 11 is 1
- How can a person go eight days without sleep?Answer: by sleeping at night
- Ana is 32 but has had only eight birthdays on her actual birth date. How?Answer: she was born on February 29
- How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come right back without hitting anything?Answer: throw it straight up
- A driver with no headlights, on a road with no moon or streetlights, sees a black cat cross ahead. How?Answer: it was daytime
Show all 25 in Lateral thinkingShow fewer
- How can you leave a room on two legs and come back on six?Answer: carry a chair back in
- A truck is stuck under a low bridge, an inch too tall. What’s the quickest fix?Answer: let some air out of the tires
- Every wall of a house faces south. A bear walks by. What color is it?Answer: white – the house is at the North Pole
- At a hardware store, 1 costs $1, 12 costs $2 and 144 costs $3. What is being sold?Answer: house numbers – $1 a digit
- How can you put a pen on the floor so that nobody can jump over it?Answer: put it right against a wall
- Ana drops her ring into a full cup of coffee, yet the ring comes out completely dry. How?Answer: the cup held coffee beans
- Name three days in a row without naming any day of the week.Answer: yesterday, today and tomorrow
- A man calls his dog from across a river. With no bridge or boat, the dog crosses and stays dry. How?Answer: the river was frozen
- A player leaves home, turns left three times and is home again, where two people in masks wait. Where?Answer: on a baseball field
- In a cold, dark cabin you have one match, a candle, an oil lamp and a wood stove. What do you light first?Answer: the match
- Why are 1990 pennies worth more than 1985 pennies?Answer: 1,990 pennies is five more
- How can two people each stand behind the other at the same time?Answer: stand back to back
- Ana can tell you the score of any game before it starts. How?Answer: before it starts, it’s 0–0
- How can you start a fire with only one stick?Answer: make it a matchstick
- Ana faces north and Bo faces south, yet they can see each other’s faces without a mirror. How?Answer: they’re facing each other
- A mile-long train enters a mile-long tunnel at a mile a minute. How long until the last car comes out?Answer: 2 minutes
- A coin is in a corked bottle. How do you get it out without pulling the cork or breaking the bottle?Answer: push the cork in
Trick questions
Short questions with the catch hidden in the wording, like the color of the bus driver’s eyes.
- Two coins add up to 30 cents, and one isn’t a nickel. What are they?Answer: a quarter and a nickel – the other is
- Ann has four sisters, and each sister has one brother. How many siblings are there in all?Answer: six – they share one brother
- How many times can you subtract 5 from 25?Answer: once – after that it’s 20
- A ship’s rope ladder has four rungs underwater. The tide rises two feet. How many are underwater now?Answer: still four – the ship rises
- You’re driving a bus. Ten people get on, three get off, five get on. What color are the driver’s eyes?Answer: the color of yours
- How many birthdays does the average person have?Answer: one – the rest are anniversaries
- How often do Christmas and New Year’s Day fall in the same year?Answer: every year
- What can you hold in your right hand but never in your left?Answer: your left elbow
Show all 25 in Trick questionsShow fewer
- In a one-story pink house, everything is pink. What color are the stairs?Answer: there are no stairs
- Ana’s walk to work takes 80 minutes; the walk home takes an hour and twenty. Why the difference?Answer: there is none
- How do you lift an elephant with one hand?Answer: you won’t find an elephant with one hand
- A clerk at the butcher shop is six feet tall and wears size 10 shoes. What does he weigh?Answer: meat
- Is there a Fourth of July in England?Answer: yes – every calendar has July 4
- How many seconds are there in a year?Answer: 12 – January 2nd, February 2nd…
- A farmer has three haystacks in one field and five in another. He puts them all together. How many haystacks now?Answer: one big one
- What two meals can you never eat for breakfast?Answer: lunch and dinner
- If two’s company and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?Answer: nine
- How many letters are in the answer to this question?Answer: four
- You go to bed at 8 p.m. and set a wind-up alarm for 9 a.m. How long do you sleep?Answer: an hour, until 9 p.m.
- A red house is built of red bricks and a blue house of blue bricks. What is a greenhouse made of?Answer: glass
- How much dirt is in a hole three feet wide and three feet deep?Answer: none – it’s a hole
- A taxi driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street, right past a traffic officer, who does nothing. Why?Answer: she’s on foot
- What goes up every year and never comes down?Answer: your age
- In which month do people sleep the least?Answer: February – it’s the shortest
- Say “silk” out loud five times. Now, what do cows drink?Answer: water, not milk
Patterns and sequences
What comes next and which one doesn’t belong, from number rows to the colors of the rainbow.
- What comes next: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, …Answer: 34 – add the two before
- What comes next: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, …Answer: 36 – square numbers
- What comes next: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, …Answer: 17 – the prime numbers
- What comes next: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, …Answer: 21 – add one more each time
- What letter comes next: M, T, W, T, F, …Answer: S, for Saturday
- What comes next: 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, …Answer: 312211 – read the last one aloud
- What comes next: 1, 2, 6, 24, 120, …Answer: 720 – times 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- What comes next: 100, 99, 97, 94, 90, …Answer: 85 – take away one more each time
Show all 25 in Patterns and sequencesShow fewer
- What letter comes next: B, D, G, K, P, …Answer: V – the gaps grow by one
- Why are these numbers in this order: 8, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 10, 3, 2, 0?Answer: their names are in alphabetical order
- What comes next: 2, 5, 10, 17, 26, …Answer: 37 – square numbers plus one
- What comes next: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, …Answer: indigo – the colors of the rainbow
- What comes next: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, …Answer: Jupiter
- What comes next: 1, 8, 27, 64, …Answer: 125 – cube numbers
- Which number is the odd one out: 2, 9, 17, 23, 31?Answer: 9 – the others are prime
- Which is the odd one out: square, triangle, circle, pentagon?Answer: circle – no straight sides
- Which number is the odd one out: 121, 343, 484, 625, 777?Answer: 625 – the rest read the same backward
- What comes next: 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, …Answer: 31 – the days in July
- What comes next: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 23, 28, 38, 49, …Answer: 62 – add the sum of the digits
- What comes next: 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, …Answer: 10 – 60 divided by 6
- What comes next: 3, 3, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, …Answer: 3 – the letters in “ten”
- What did the year 1961 do that no year will do again until 6009?Answer: read the same upside down
- What comes next: 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, …Answer: 63 – double it and add one
- What letter comes next: A, Z, B, Y, C, …Answer: X
- What comes next: 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, …Answer: 101 – counting in binary
Word and letter teasers
Anagrams, compound words and letter play, like turning a dormitory into a dirty room.
- Which English word uses all five vowels once each, in alphabetical order?Answer: facetious (or abstemious)
- Which number, written as a word, has all its letters in alphabetical order?Answer: forty
- “Hungry” is one common English word that ends in “gry.” What is the other?Answer: angry
- Rearrange the letters of “inch” to make a part of your face.Answer: chin
- Rearrange the letters of “new door” to make one word.Answer: one word
- Which five-letter word sounds the same after you take away its last four letters?Answer: queue
- Write SWIMS in capital letters and turn the paper upside down. What does it say?Answer: SWIMS – it reads the same
- What do the words level, radar and kayak have in common?Answer: they read the same backward
Show all 25 in Word and letter teasersShow fewer
- Which common English word ends in the letters “mt”?Answer: dreamt
- Which three letters sound like a bird, a vegetable and a question?Answer: J, P and Y
- Which US state has a name of just one syllable?Answer: Maine
- Which word can go after sun, moon and flash?Answer: light
- Which word can go before ball, man and flake?Answer: snow
- Which word can go after tooth, hair and paint?Answer: brush
- Which word can go before fly, cup and milk?Answer: butter
- Which word can go before house, light and work?Answer: fire
- Rearrange the letters of “dormitory” into two words.Answer: dirty room
- Rearrange the letters of “astronomer” into two words that describe one.Answer: moon starer
- Rearrange the letters of “the eyes” into two words that say what they do.Answer: they see
- What does the word “stressed” spell backward?Answer: desserts
- Add one space to “nowhere.” Where are you now?Answer: now here
- Which number has exactly as many letters in its name as its value?Answer: four
- Which month has the longest name?Answer: September
- Which month’s name is also an order to walk in step?Answer: March
- Rearrange the letters of “earth” to make a body part.Answer: heart
Frequently asked questions
How many brain teasers are there?
There are 150 brain teasers, 25 in each of six categories: logic puzzles, quick math, lateral thinking, trick questions, patterns and sequences, and word and letter teasers. Every teaser comes with its answer, shown on the card when you tap “Show answer” and printed under it in the list on this page.
What is the difference between a brain teaser and a riddle?
A riddle describes something in disguise and asks you to name it, like a towel that gets wetter as it dries. A brain teaser asks you to work something out: an order, a number, the next item in a row or the catch in an odd situation. For riddles, see riddles with answers.
Do I need to be good at math to play?
No. Only Quick math uses numbers, and most of those turn on a catch rather than a long sum, like five machines making five widgets. Trick questions, Lateral thinking and Word and letter teasers need no math at all, and logic puzzles need only careful reading.
What should we play after brain teasers?
Try trivia questions for questions with one right answer you either know or don’t, or twenty questions, where one player thinks of something and the others narrow it down with yes-or-no questions.