Operational Puzzles Interview Preparation Guide Download PDF
Puzzles guideline for job interview preparation. Explore list of Puzzles frequently asked questions(FAQs) asked in number of Puzzles interviews. Post your comments as your suggestions, questions and answers on any Puzzles Interview Question or answer. Ask Puzzles Question, your question will be answered by our fellow friends.
63 Puzzles Questions and Answers:
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1 :: A man woke up one morning to find that one of the wheels of his car had a completely flat tire. Despite this he set off in his car and drove 100 miles to visit a customer. He then drove 100 miles home. He did not repair or inflate the flat tire. How did he manage to make the journey?
The flat tire was on the man's spare wheel which he kept in the car trunk. The four wheels he drove on all had properly inflated tires.
2 :: A man threw something away. He then paid someone else twenty dollars to try to find it but the search was unsuccessful. Later the man found it easily himself. How?
The man fell overboard from a small boat at the seashore. He could not swim well and got into difficulties so he threw away the expensive and heavy binoculars around his neck. He was rescued. He then offered a swimmer a reward to dive down and recover his binoculars. This effort was unsuccessful. Later, however, when the tide went out he was able to pick them up off the sand.
3 :: A man was changing a wheel on his car when the four nuts used to hold the wheel in place well into a sewer drain and were lost. He was afraid he ws stuck there, but a passing boy made a very useful suggestion which enabled the man to drive off. What was the boy's idea?
The boy suggested that the man take one wheel nut off each of the oyher three wheels in order to attach fourth wheel. Once he had done this, the man could safely drive to the nearest garage with each wheel firmly attached by three nuts.
4 :: A manhole is a hole which allows someone to gain access to the sewers or other pipes which are below ground. Our local town council recently decided that all the town's manhole covers should be changed from square to round ones. We are user to the town council making silly decisions, but this time they were absolutely right. why?
A square or rectangular manhole cover can fall down the hole, while a round manhole cover cannot. The square cover will fit down the diagonal of the hole(unless the rim it sits on is very large) but no matter how you turn a circle it never measures less than its diameter. So for safety and practicality all manhole covers should be round.
5 :: A man lies dead in a field. Next to him is a long piece of cord. How did he die?
Incredible as it may seem, some people enjoy leaping off high buildings or bridges with a length of elastic cord fastened to them. This pastime is known as bungee jumping. The poor man in this situation died when he jumped from a high cane in the field and his bungee cord broke.
6 :: The famous penny black, the world's first postage stamp, was introduced in England in 1840. The idea of postage stamps was a great success and was taken up worldwide. Yet the penny Black was in use for only one year before it was replaced by the Penny Red. Why?
The postmark used at that time was always black. It was therefore difficult to tell whether a stamp had been frankled or not. This led to people reusing used stamps. On a Penny red the black postmark was clearly visible.
7 :: A man had a book which was worth $40,000. Why did he deliberately destroy it?
The man actually owned two copies of the valuable book. By destroying one copy he increased the value of the other.
8 :: A man parked his car outside a bank and rushed in. He held up twenty-five people and ran out with $200. A policeman who saw the whole incident stopped the man. He told him off and then let him go. Why?
When the man parked his car outside the bank he held up twenty-five people who were stuck in traffic behind him. The policeman told him not to park like that again.
9 :: How do the publishers of dictionaries or atlases protect themselves from pirates who would copy their work?
Publishers normally include a nonexistent word or a non-existent island in a dictionary or atlas, respectively. If it then appears in somebody else's work, they have clear evidence of copying.
10 :: Ornithologists now agree that there is a very good reason why birds' eggs are generally narrower at one end than the other. What is the reason?
A spherical or oval egg would roll in a straight line. How-ever, an asymmetrical egg, which is narrower at one end than the other, will tend to roll in a circle. (Try it with a normal hen's egg.) if the eggs are on a cliff edge or other precarious place, the tendency to roll around rather than straight is a distinct advantage.
11 :: A man went out for a drive. A day later he was found dead in the car. The car had not crashed. How had he died?
The man drove his car to the beach to watch the sunset over the waves. He fell asleep. The tide came in and seeped in around the car doors and windows. He awoke, but with the pressure of the water, he couldn't get out of the car. The water filled the car and drowned him. Later the tide went out and he was found dead in an empty car.
12 :: Visitors to a scenic mountain village were often amused by the village idiot. When offered a choice between a shiny 50-cent piece and a crumpled $5 bill, he would always happily choose the half-dollar. The bill was worth ten times as much, so why did he never choose it?
The so-called village idiot was smart enough to realize that as long as he kept choosing the 50-cent piece, people would keep offering him the choice. If he once took the $5 bill, the stream of coins would stop rolling in.
13 :: We all know that there is a way to get a ship into a bottle. How would you get a full-sized pear into a bottle without damaging the peer or breaking or cutting the bottle?
The fruit is grown in the bottle. The bottle is tied onto the branch shortly after the fruit starts to form.
14 :: We all know that there's a way to get a ship into a bottle. How would you get a full-sized pear into a bottle without damaging the peer or breaking or cutting the bottle?
The fruit is grown in the bottle. The bottle is tied onto the branch shortly after the fruit starts to form.
15 :: A man was found shot dead in his study. He was slumped over his desk and a gun was in his hand. There was a cassette recorder on his desk. When the police entered the room and pressed the play button on the tape recorder they heard, "I can't go on. I have nothing to live for." Then there was the sound of a gunshot. How did the detective immediately know that the man had been murdered?
The cassette had started at the beginning of the man's utterance. Who could have rewound it?
16 :: A man's lifelong ambition was to achieve a certain goal yet he insured himself against achieving it. What was the goal?
This is the true story from Japan. The man easd a keen golfer and his lifelong ambition was to score a hole in one. But this would prove very expensive as the custom at his golf club was that anyone who scored a hole in one had to buy all the other members a drink.
17 :: A child was born with its legs so wasted that it would never be able to walk. When they learned this, the child's parents were especially happy that the child was crippled rather than normal and healthy. Why?
This is a true story from India. The child was born into a family of beggars in Calcutta. The parents knew that a crippled child would earn more as a beggar than a healthy child would.
18 :: A French glove manufacturer received an order for 5,000 pairs of expensive sealskin gloves from New York department store. HE then learned that there was a very expensive tax on the import of sealskin gloves into the United States. How did he (legitimately) get the gloves into the country without paying the import tax?
The manufacturer sent 5,000 right-hand gloves to Miami and 5,000 left-hand gloves to New York. He refused to pay the duty on them so both sets of gloves were impounded. Since no body claimed them, both lots were subsequently sold off at auction. They went for a very low price (who wants 5,000 left hand gloves?). Naturally, it was the clever Frenchman who one with a very low bid at each auction.
19 :: A man stabbed his wife to death. He was alone with his victim before and after the crime. To throw the police off the scent he suddenly decided to leave false fingerprints one the murder weapon. How did he do it?
The man put his wife's big-toe print on the knife and left it beside the body. He could have used his own toe-print but that could have been later traced to him. Once his wife was buried, the "fingerprints" could never be traced.
20 :: A man was walking in country unfamiliar to him. He came to a crossroads where he found that the signpost showing the directions of the roads had fallen over. How did he find out which way to go?
The man knew the name of the town he had left that morning. So he replaced the sign so that it correctly named the direction he had come from. It would then be correct for all the other directions.
21 :: St. James Hospital handled all the accident cases for the city. They were kept especially busy by the large number of drivers and passengers injured on the city's roads. To improve the road safety, a law was passed making the wearing of seat belts mandatory. Drivers and passengers now started to wear seat belts in their cars. The frequency road accidents remained exactly the same. However, the hospital was now even busier handling road-accident victims than before. Why?
The wearing of seat belts was successful in reducing the number of deaths from road accidents. People who with-out seat belts would have been killed (and taken to the morgue) now survived but with injuries. Consequently more people were treated for injuries than before.
22 :: A man lies dead in a room, with a cord tied tightly around his neck. The door has been locked from the inside. Outside of the body, there is nothing else in the room. Remembering that one cannot choke oneself (one would pass out before dying.) how did you die
The cord around the man's neck was a piece of rawhide which he had soaked in water before entering the room. Once he had it tightly around his neck it naturally grew tighter as it dried.
23 :: A man was doing his job but was killed because he lacked a certain piece of furniture. Why
The man was a circus lion tamer who had unfortunately forgotten his chair when he had to face a bad-tempered lion!
24 :: A man challenged the Olympic 100-metres sprint champion to race over a short distance on the condition that he is allowed to choose the course. How does he manage to beat the champion? (N.B The solution to the preceding problem won't help you here.)
He challenged the Olympic champion to run up a ladder. Since he was the fastest window cleaner in Ireland he won easily!
25 :: A man challenged the Masters Golf champion to a round of golf on the condition that he be allowed to chose the time and place of their contest. The champion accepted the challenge but was easily defeated by the challenger. Why?
The challenger was a blind golfer and he arranged to play the champion at midnight on a dark night. The blind man was at no disadvantage in the dark but the champion could not see his ball to hit it. (Blind golfers do play matches and tournaments; they rely on others to indicate where their ball and the hole are.)
