IMPOSSIPUZZLES
1)
Ben studied the list. “There’s something wrong here! We’ve never sold even 300 of those books in a month.”
Fred checked. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ve got the figures down in reverse order, and that makes it about three times what it should be.”
“Eleven less than three times, to be exact,” Ben told him.
What was the correct number?
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2)
Dan spread out the cards face down on the table. “Far from a complete pack, but they’ll do,” he said. “Draw four cards and let me see them.”
Yevgenny complied. “That’s funny,” he exclaimed. “All the same suit, all clubs.”
“A coincidence, but nothing to do with the trick,” Dan told him. “However, it was exactly a fifty-fifty chance that you’d pick four clubs.”
How many clubs did they have there?
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3)
“So you have a little brother, eh?” said Duayne. “That’s nice. How old is he?”
“He’s only a baby,” Fatima replied “If you multiply our ages you get three times what they add up to.”
Hardly a straight answer, but how old were Fatima and her brother?
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4)
“Wow,” exclaimed Annabel when she came through the door. “New sofa, new rug, new coffee table. I wonder what they cost.”
Andrzej grinned. “Only three hundred euros the lot,” he told her. “The sofa cost twice as much as the table and rug together, and the table just a third as much as the rug and sofa together.”
You work it out!
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5)
“So, that’s Kayla,” said Seamus, studying the photo. “Quite a young woman now.”
“Still in her teens,” Johann laughed. “And that’s Richard with her. When he was half as old as she is now, she was a third as old as he was when Kayla was half as old as he is now.”
How old was Richard?
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6)
“I closed the deal on that bit of land,” Gustavo declared. “It’s square, area just 3,600 square metres, and it’s got a most unusual feature: one side forms a side of a triangular artificial pond.”
“Sounds attractive,” Maddy commented. “What about your neighbours there?”
Gustavo smiled. “Well, their plots are also square, and they form the other two sides of the pond. They have 2,704 and 3,136 square metres respectively.”
What was the area of that pond?
Answers tomorrow!