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Trang 3BAFFLING BRAIN
Trang 5A Ward Lock Book
First published in the UK 1992 by Ward Lock (a Cassell imprint) Villiers House 41/47 Strand LONDON WC2N SJE Reprinted 1992
Copyright © 1992 Philip J Carter & Ken A Russell
All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the copyright holder and Publisher Distributed in the United States
by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.,
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810 Distributed in Australia
by Capricorn Link (Australia) Pty Ltd
P.O Box 665, Lane Cove, NSW 2066
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7063 7090 2
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Trang 6CONTENTS Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 Warm-ups 9 Anagrams 16 Logic 23 Numbers 27 Words 41 Letter grids 55 Alphametics 63 Cryptograms 67 Magic word squares 72 Magic number squares 77
Crosswords 81
Trang 7ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A Special thanks to our wives, both named
Barbara, for checking our puzzles and for their
Trang 8INTRODUCTION
Mensa is best described as a social club To join
one has first to sit a supervised intelligence test and obtain an IQ score of 148 or over on the
Cattell scale, which will put the applicant in the
top 2 per cent of the population Mensa currently
has 38,000 members in the UK and almost 100,000 throughout the world
Mensa is the Latin word for table, and the word
implies a round table society in which every
member is of equal standing
The puzzles in this book have been arranged into sections of similar types, and a star rating has —
been allocated to each puzzle to enable you to monitor your performance throughout
%* STANDARD * * HARDER
* % & CHALLENGING * * * * DIFFICULT *****% VERY DIFFICULT
Each puzzle has been cross-referenced with two numbers, a question number (Q) and an answer
Trang 10WARM-UPS
This section should warm up your brain before it is teased by the sections which follow, and it may
give you some inkling of the way our own minds
Trang 12| Sequence | SUET, MOSS, TURF, WELL
Choose one word from the list below to continue
the above sequence
GLUM, THIN, LOAD, LARD, BEST
| Bula’s Truisms | Rearrange the following words to make a trite saying
Trang 13| Letters and Numbers |
If BAAF equals 46, what does AGFD equal?
| Kelso’s Observations and Pope’s Rule |
These two sayings have been fused together Try
Trang 14| Riddle | There was a green house Inside the green house
there was a white house Inside the white house
there was a red house Inside the red house there
were a lot of little black babies
What is it?
| Series |
What comes next in this series?
Trang 15| Treasure | The instructions will lead you to the treasure, but you must find the first instruction and travel through each room once, except the rooms marked T, where you should finish
Trang 17ANAGRAMS
Anagrams were invented by the Greek poet
Lycophon in AD 280 Originally an anagram was
simply a word which, when reversed, formed
another word — for example, ROOM / MOOR or
TIDE / EDIT The word anagram is derived from Greek, ‘ana’ meaning backwards and ‘gramma’ meaning a letter
Anagrams have been a popular word game throughout history and reached the height of their popularity in Victorian times when it was
fashionable to rearrange the letters of the names of politicians into appropriate phrases For example, ‘I’m a Whig who'll be a traitor to
England’s rule’ was an unkind anagram for ‘Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone’ who was elected British Prime Minister four times in the
late 19" century Another popular Victorian
pastime was that of arranging well-known
proverbs into meaningful sentences For example, ‘I don’t admit women are faint’ is an anagram of ‘Time and tide wait for no man’
Trang 18example, ‘O Mater Dei memento mei’(Oh Mother
of God, remember me) is an anagram of ‘Amo Demeter enim timeo’ (I love Demeter because I
fear her) Demeter is the ‘Goddess of Fruitful
Earth’ and the Greek equivalent of Isis The first
sentence is written on the wall of the Tower of the
Trang 20| Anagrams | Can you find three anagrams — each is only one word? 1 OSCILLATION 2 SECTIONAL 3 ENUMERATION | Hidden Anagram |
If we presented you with the words MAR, AM and FAR and asked you to find the smallest word that contained all the letters from which these
words could be produced, we would expect you to
come up with the word FARM Here is a further
Trang 21| Division |
Divide the grid below into four equal parts, each of which should be the same shape and contain 16 letters The 16 letters can then be arranged into a
Trang 22| Anagrammed Synonyms | In each of the following groups of three words your task is to find the two of the three that can be
paired to form an anagram of one word, which is a
synonym of the remaining word
For example, LEG -— MEEK — NET The words
LEG and NET are an anagram of GENTLE,
which is a synonym of the remaining word —
MEEK
=|
— SOOrIANAWNH
CORE —-ROD- ROT GRAIN — NOVEL — OIL LEAP —- BAY —- DUE MOB —-LAG-— SKIP SCENT —-CAP— DARN RIB-ODD—-RAZE RIPE — DOSE-— SANE
Trang 23| Anagram Theme |
Arrange the 14 words in pairs so that each pair is an anagram of another word or name The seven words produced will have a linking theme For
example, if the words DIAL and THAN were in
the list, they could be paired to form an anagram
Trang 24LOGIC
‘It is not enough to have a good mind
The main thing is to use it well.’
René Descartes Logical application of the mind is the main
Trang 25| Boys |
A woman has two children
1 What are the odds that they are both boys?
2 If the woman said ‘At least one of my children is a boy,’ what are the odds now?
3 If the woman said ‘The first child was a boy,’ what are the odds now?
| Birds |
There is a field with a number of trees in it There are a number of birds — more than one — in each tree There is more than one tree in the field Each tree has the same number of birds in it If you
knew the total number of birds in the field, you
would know the number of trees There are
Trang 26
At the fairground the game is to select the Ace of
Spades from four face-down cards and to win a prize
You select A, the banker turns up B, which is the 7
of Diamonds He asks if you would like to change
your choice to C or D What should you do?
| President |
Alan, Barry and Clive live on an island inhabited
by three groups: the Truthtellers, the Falsifiers and
the Alternators Each is a Truthteller, who always
tells the truth, or a Falsifier, who always lies, or an
Alternator, who alternately tells the truth and lies
One of the three men is President of the island Alan says: “The President belongs to a different group from each of the other two of us’ and ‘Barry
is not the President’
Barry says: “The President is a Falsifier’ and
Trang 27| Symbols | Divide the square into
four identical sections, |2|U 4
Each section is to have A O
one of each of the four fe |
symbols: LJ, A, © and olalolalo + L] oO sp | | Island |
The explorer wished to find the way to the coast He had three maps, X, Y and Z One was true, two
were false There were five natives, of two tribes
The Doog always told the truth; the Dab always
told lies They gave him the following advice
X is the correct map Y is the correct map
1 and 2 are not both Dabs
Either 1 is a Dab or 2 is a Doog
Either I am a Dab or 3 and 4 are of the same type (that is both Doogs or both Dabs)
WPwWN
>
Trang 29| Roulette | A roulette wheel has the numbers 0 to 36 From the information below, which number have we bet on?
1 It is divisible by 3
2 When the digits are added together the total lies between 4 and 8
3 It is an odd number
4 When the digits are multiplied together the total lies between 4 and 8
| Dice |
Trang 30| Horses |
In a six-horse race a bookmaker fixed his odds to give approximately a 6 per cent return on the
money staked What odds should he quote on horse No 2? Horse 1 50:1 against 2 ? 3 5:1 against 4 4:1 against 5 3:1 against 6 2:1 against EE
Trang 31| Scales |
From the choices below, which weight should you
place on the scales to balance them? 1 105lb 2 10.6lb 3 10.7Ib 4 10.8lb 5 109lb 6 110lb | Timber Beam |
Trang 32ae
The hot tap fills a bath in 4 minutes The cold tap fills a bath in 5 minutes If you pull out the plug the bath empties in 10 minutes
If both taps are turned on and the plug is pulled, how long will it take to fill the bath?
ee
A tiled floor is laid with 4 inch square tiles A 2'/,
inch diameter coin is thrown on to the floor What
are the chances that the coin will fall not touching
Trang 33| Connections | |
Insert the numbers 0 to 12 in the circles so that for
any particular circle the sum of the numbers in the circles that are connected directly to it equals the
Trang 34| Brain Strain |
Insert numbers into the blank squares to make the
calculations correct both across and down All the numbers to be inserted are less than 10 + + =|4 xX + x xX _ x|6|= + - + +|2 |+ = 4 |X _ = | Bowling_ Ball |
The bowling ball of player A travels the full
length of the lane at an average speed of 50 mph
The ball of player B travels at an average of 20
Trang 35| Connections Il | Insert the numbers 0 to 12 in the circles so that for any particular circle the sum of the numbers in the
circles that are connected directly to it equals the
value corresponding to the number in that circle
Trang 36| Springs |
Trang 37| Drive | If Sam had driven for 20 minutes less than the time he would have driven if he had driven 20 miles less than he did drive but at two-thirds of the speed at which he drove, he would have driven 10 miles less than he did
If he had driven 20 minutes longer than the
time he would have driven if he had driven 10 miles less than he did drive but at three-quarters of the speed at which he drove, he would have driven 20 miles further How far did Sam drive?
| Time |
My watch had stopped at 10 o’clock In two minutes time it will be twice as many minutes short of 11 as it was past 10 o’clock 25 minutes
ago What was the correct time?
| Watch |
My friend asked me the time I said: ‘At the next
Trang 38Age
“When I was as old as you were when I was two years younger than I am now,’ Ken told his sister,
“you were a third as old as I will be in two years’ time.’
His sister said: “When I am as old as you were
when you were twice as old as I was, you will be just a year older than you are.’
How old were they?
| Condiments |
In the restaurant some diners took salt only, some took only pepper, some took both and some took
neither Nine people took salt and 11 took pepper
Three times as many took both as those who took none
How many diners were there?
Trang 39| Complete the Calculation |
Insert the same number three times to make this calculation correct: 6 — 9 = 12
| Straight and True |
What is unique about the number 29?
| Digits |
Trang 41| Fractions | What do the following fractions have in common?
16 19 26 64 95 65
| Eleven |
A number is always divisible by exactly 11 when the sums of its alternate digits are equal For ex-
ample, the number 4785, in which 4 + 8 = 7 + 5,
and its reverse, 5874, are divisible by 11 exactly Place the 16 digits provided in the grid so that all
the horizontal and all the vertical lines are exactly divisible by 11 when read both forwards and
backwards, Remember that no multiplication or
division is necessary All you have to do is to ensure that in each horizontal
Trang 42WORDS
‘Good words cost nothing but are worth much.’
Thomas Fuller In this section we present a wide variety of
vocabulary-based puzzles with a mixture of word
knowledge, logical reasoning and, from time to time, a little general knowledge Be prepared for
the unexpected and remember that our minds are
Trang 43| Sequence † |
The 11 words below are arranged in alphabetical order Can you rearrange them into a more meaningful sequence?
DIAL, FOOT, LAW, LED, LESS, LOCK, ME, ON, OUT, PAD, TO
| Odd One Out 1 |
Which of these words is the odd one out — orator, avenue, divide, animal, safari?
| Sequence 2 |
What comes next in the sequence N, W, R, OU,
Trang 44| Groups |
Below are five groups — tools, minerals, colours,
vegetables and trees Which one of the five groups
is the odd one out?
Chuck, lathe, anvil, mallet, plane Tin, opal, platinum, augite, zinc Beige, roan, olive, white, navy Corn, endive, leek, bean, spinach Birch, elm, elder, cedar, hazel
| Odd One Out 2 |
Which group of three letters is the odd one out?
ta
bi
Nà
Trang 45| Perception |
What word is indicated below?
K OK OK
Trang 46| Odd One Out |
Which is the odd one out? A HEN B OWN C RISE D MASK E ACT | = mm Word 1 men
Solve the five clues Enter the correct words in the
pyramid and then rearrange all the letters to find a
15-letter word
An exclamation (1)
Objective case singular of