Maths puzzles often feature in a lot of competitive examinations. This type of questions evaluate your mental abilities, calculation speed and problem solving skills. Here, we have compiled a variety of math riddles with different levels of difficulty. This series of articles contain easy maths puzzles with answers and explanations. Each article consists of 10 puzzle-based questions. Practice these simple maths puzzles and check your aptitude:

Q.1.There are some chairs in a room. If 6 men sit on each chair, then 4 chairs are left unoccupied. However, if 4 men sit on each chair, 4 men are left standing. How many men are there in the room?

Let there be x men in the room.
When 6 men sit on each room, number of chairs =(x/6 +4)
When 4 men sit on each chair, number of chairs= (x-4)/4
(x/6 +4)= (x-4)/4
By solving, x = 60.
Hence there are 60 men in the room

Q.2.In the following question, one term in the number series is wrong, find out the wrong term.

1, 3, 12, 25, 48

The term of the series are (1²-0²), ( 2²-1²), (4²-2²), (6²-3²), (8²-4²). So 25 is wrong and Must be replaced by (6²-3²)= 27.

Q.3.Rajat appeared for a Science exam. He was given 135 problems to solve. He tried to solve all of them correctly but some of them went wrong. Anyhow he scored 75. His score was calculated by subtracting three times the number of wrong answers from the number of correct answers. Can you tell how many problems he solved correctly?

Let us assume W = Wrong and R = Right
R – 3W = 75
R + W = 135
- 4W = - 60.
W = 15. => 15 + R = 135. => R = 135 - 15 = 120.

Q.4.A farmer has three children and 44 gold coins. He decides to give coins to his three children in the following ratio: 1/3:1/6:1/9. How could his last will be followed?

The ratio 1/3:1/6:1/9 is equal to 6:3:2. ( By multiplying by the LCM of the numbers in the denominator i.e 3 6 9 = 18 ; Hence the ratio is 6:3:2 )
So by giving 1st child 24 coins, 2nd – 12 and 3rd – 8 the last will of the farmer can be followed.

Q.5.Rishabh decided to quit his smoking habit one day, but he had 64 cigarettes with him. So he started smoking them one by one, to finish them. He had the habit of smoking only 1/4th of it and leaving the rest butt. Latter he found out that by joining 4 butts he can form 1 cigarette. So, how many cigarettes in all he smoked.

From 4 butts he gets 1 cigarette. Hence from 64 butts he gets 16 (64/4) cigarettes. Then from 16 butts he gets 4 cigarettes and from 4 butts he gets more cigarette 64+16+4+1=85. So he smoked 85 cigarettes.

Q.6.Imagine Manmohan Singh is a pilot. He flies from Delhi to Banaras, 2000 Km and 5 hrs away. He drives to hotel Kapoorsons in Banaras which is 20 Km from the airport. The next day, he wakes up and drives back to the airport which is another 20 Km. He flies another plane up to Kolkota which is 2000 Km. There he goes into the employees lounge and sleeps at the airport that night. The next day he flies to London which is 5,000 Km. He stays in London for 3 days, and then flies all the way back to Delhi, where his home is. The flight is 10,000 Km. How many Kilometers did he go in total and how old is the pilot?

He went 19040 Km. The pilot is as old as Manmohan Singh is. The beginning of the riddle said 'Imagine Manmohan Singh is a pilot!'

Q.7.Kitu Kidwani has seven pairs of white gloves and seven pairs of pink gloves in her drawer. In complete darkness, how many gloves should she at least take from the drawer in order to be sure to get a pair that match?

She should take at least 15 gloves. That's because she could possibly take out 7 white left gloves and then 7 pink left gloves. The next one will then be either the right glove or left glove that matches.

Q.8.We have a 50 ft piece of rope. If it takes one second to cut it into a 1-foot piece .How long would it take to cut the entire rope into one-foot pieces?

Q.9.On a certain island, 5% of the 2000 inhabitants are one legged and half of the others go barefoot. What is the least number of shoes needed in the island?

2,000-Surprised? Well, this is how it works out, It is really immaterial what percentage of the population is one legged! In any case the one-legged people will all require one shoe per head. From the remaining, half will go barefoot and therefore they need no shoes and the rest will need two shoes per head. And this works out at one shoe per person for the ‘others’. Therefore, we shall need for the whole population on the average one shoe per head.

Q.10.Three friends divided some bullets equally. After all of them shot 8 bullets each, the total number of bullets remaining is equal to the bullets each had after division. Find the original number divided.?