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[For Seniors] Think and Have Fun: Introducing Brain-Stimulating Logic Puzzles
This time, we’re introducing logic puzzles designed for older adults.
A logic puzzle is one where you think about why something happens or consider the methods and steps involved.
Making use of your own knowledge and finding hints or trick points in the problem statement are key to solving the puzzles.
Thoughtfully working through logic puzzles helps activate the brain and can also improve concentration and creativity.
Why not incorporate them into quiz activities at senior care facilities? We’ve prepared everything from shorter puzzles with fewer clues in the text to longer ones with more to read.
Try using paper or a whiteboard to make things clearer with drawings and diagrams, and offer hints as needed to make it engaging!
[For Seniors] Think and Have Fun: Introducing Brain-Stimulating Logic Riddles (1–10)
There are three doors in front of you, and you must choose one to proceed. Behind the first door is an assassin with a knife, ready to cut anyone who enters. Behind the second door is a lion that hasn’t eaten for six months. And behind the third door is a deep pit that cannot be jumped over. Which door should you choose to survive?
See the answer
The correct answer is the second door: the one with a lion that hasn’t eaten for six months. A lion that hasn’t eaten for six months might seem like it would be starving and attack a human, but if it truly hasn’t eaten for that long, it’s very likely already dead of starvation. Therefore, it’s the safest choice among the three doors.
A boy was told, “Use these tools to capture a lion.” The tools were a cage, glue, rope, duct tape, bait, a gun, and a net. The boy used his wits and successfully captured the lion. What was the first thing the boy used?
See the answer
The answer is “the head, or wisdom.” The riddle mentions many tools, so you might be tempted to look for the answer among them, but first you use your head to decide which tool to use, right? By thinking with your head and wringing out your wisdom, you managed to capture the lion.
It started to rain, but then it stopped. When I looked up at the clear sky, a beautiful rainbow had appeared. What time did the rainbow appear?
See the answer
2 o'clock
If you focus on how “虹” is read, the answer becomes easier to find. Both “虹” (rainbow) and “2時” (2 o’clock) are read as “niji.” A rainbow is a phenomenon where sunlight is reflected by water droplets in the air, such as rain. By the way, it seems that under the right conditions—like during a full moon—you can see a rainbow at night as well. It’s written as “月虹” and read “gekkō,” and it’s a rare phenomenon.
If you collect five empty juice cans, you can exchange them for one new juice. You have 200 new juices. After exchanging, how many juices can you drink in total?
See the answer
The answer is 249 cans. First, drink 200 cans of juice and exchange the 200 empty cans for 40 new ones. Drink the 40 new cans and exchange those 40 empties for 8 new cans. Then drink the 8 new cans and exchange 5 of those 8 empties for 1 more new can. Finally, drink the last new can, making a total of 249 cans. It’s an impractical number to actually drink, but it makes for an interesting logic puzzle.
A murder occurred on a large passenger ship during a voyage. A man said, “I am a police officer. The suspect is one of these three people,” but another police officer who heard this thought that the man was not a real police officer. Why did he think so?
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The answer is, “Because a man used the word ‘yōgisha’ (suspect).” The term ‘yōgisha’ is used by the media, while the police call a suspect ‘higisha’ instead. You might hear ‘yōgisha’ more often in dramas and news programs.
There is a large frying pan that can cook two slices of bread side by side. Using this pan, we will toast both sides of three slices of bread. It takes 30 seconds to toast one side, and if we follow the procedure of “toasting slices 1 and 2 at the same time, then toasting slice 3 one side at a time at the end,” it takes a total of 120 seconds to finish toasting both sides of all the slices. Let’s think of a method that can toast them in a shorter time than this procedure.
See the answer
The procedure is to first grill one side of the first and second slices, then grill the other side of the first slice together with one side of the third slice. Finally, grill the other side of the second slice and the other side of the third slice. With the method in the problem, you end up grilling four times, which takes 120 seconds, but with this method you finish in three rounds, so it takes 90 seconds.
You are a bus driver. First, 5 people got on. At the next stop, 4 people got off and 3 got on. At the following stop, 1 person got off and 2 got on. At the final stop, an elderly woman said, “Driver, you’re about the same age as my child.” How old is the bus driver?
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The answer is “your age.” At the beginning of the riddle, it says, “You are the bus driver.” While you’re busy calculating how many passengers got on and off, it’s easy to get tripped up by this problem.