A quiz that seems easy but is actually hard: trick questions that make you think flexibly

5 o'clock

This puzzle plays on the familiar phrase “three o’clock snack” (3 o’clock treat) to make you think it’s about time, but it’s actually asking for the number of characters. The word “oyatsu” (snack) has three characters in Japanese, so it was expressed as “3 o’clock” (3-ji). Similarly, the word “yoru gohan” (dinner) has five characters, so the answer is “Dinner is at 5 o’clock” (yoru gohan wa 5-ji).

sea

When thinking about “the middle of Hokkaido,” it’s easy to make a mistake by directly picturing the central point on a map. The word “middle” as we usually use it doesn’t necessarily refer to a geographical center. In this puzzle, the key is to notice that the word “Hokkaido” in Japanese has three characters, and from that, it’s a trick question leading you to the answer “sea.”

jumped from the first floor

The tricky point in this problem is that the phrase “a 50-story building” makes you intuitively imagine jumping from a high floor. However, it doesn’t mention which floor they jumped from, so the correct answer is that they jumped from the first floor, close to the ground and without risk of injury.

doctor

This quiz is a trick question that plays on the double meaning of the word “kakaru.” After catching a cold, people often “kakaru isha,” meaning they go to see a doctor for treatment. Here, the correct answer uses “kakaru” in the sense of “to consult/see a doctor,” not the physical action or state of “hanging/applying/being involved.” The point of the problem is to uncover this alternative interpretation hidden within an everyday expression.

Because I'm a driver.

The trick here is that the mention of sitting on a crowded train makes you think about sitting as a passenger. Train drivers have dedicated seats for operating the train. Therefore, even when it’s crowded, the driver is always able to sit.

2 people

Seven friends are playing hide-and-seek. Since four have been found, if you just count the ones who came out, it might seem like there are three left. However, that calculation includes the seeker in the total. In hide-and-seek, the seeker doesn’t hide, so excluding the seeker, the actual number still hiding is 7 minus the 1 seeker and the 4 found players, which equals 2.

Easy

It’s a trick question that plays with words. You might first think of the respondent’s ability or the difficulty of the problem. Those ways of thinking are wrong, and the question itself—saying “the answer is easy”—is the answer, making “easy” the correct solution in this trick question.