[For Seniors] Fun Brain Training! A Collection of Tricky Quizzes You’ll Definitely Get Stumped By

Because the door opened and then 'closed'

It’s a riddle that uses the two identical-sounding words “shimatta” and “shimatta,” and you can solve it by reading the sentence carefully. Because the strong wind caused the door to open and then ‘close’ (shimatta), it seems they couldn’t close the door again. Using homophones—words that sound the same but have different meanings—could inspire other original riddles too!

12

The answer is “12.” It’s similar to the common riddle, “How many months have 31 days?” which makes you think only some of the 12 months qualify. But if you think carefully, there’s no month that doesn’t have 28 days. It’s a quiz that’s easy to get tripped up by.

Because (he/she/they are) a dentist.

The answer to this riddle is “because he’s a dentist.” Even if his back hurts and he’s having trouble, a dentist still has to go to work, so he goes to the dental clinic—his workplace—every day. It’s easy to think about the problem from the patient’s perspective, but if you change your point of view, it leads you to the answer, doesn’t it?

Still just a cucumber

“Tomato” reads as “tomato” even when reversed, right? So you might think that if you read “cucumber” backwards it would become something like “rebmucuc,” but the problem statement only says to turn it upside down, not to “read it upside down.” A cucumber remains a cucumber even if you flip it upside down!

speed

In this problem, because the names of fruits—grapes, pears, and mandarins—appear, you might be tempted to answer with a fruit. But that’s the trick! Since the person is braking while riding a bicycle, what’s dropping isn’t a fruit but “speed”! It’s a fun riddle once you know the answer.

Because the clothes I washed were jet black

Since the problem statement says it “removes any kind of stain,” you might get the illusion that the clothes will become “pure white” after washing. However, the item you washed was originally pitch black. Even if the stains come out and it becomes clean, it won’t turn pure white—it will stay pitch black, right?