SKILL PRACTICE PROBLLEMS (Puzzles)
1. There is a number which is very peculiar. This number is three times the sum of its digits. Can you find the
number?
2. My friend Asha was throwing a very grand party and wanted to borrow from me 100 wine glasses. I decided to
send them through my boy servant Harish.
Just to give an incentive to Harish to deliver the glasses intact I offered him 3 paise for every glass delivered
safely and threatened to forefeit 9 paise for every glass he [Link] settlement Harish received Rs 2.40 from
me. How many glasses did Harish break?
3. Farmer Thimmayya bought some mules at Rs. 50 each, sheep at Rs. 40 each, goats at Rs. 25 each, and pigs at Rs.
10 each. The average price of the animals per head worked to Rs. [Link] is the minimum number of animals of
each kind did he buy?
4. Little Mammu was playing marbles with her friend Nawal. I heard her say to him, ‘If you give me one of your
marbles, I'll have as many as you.' Nawal replied, ‘If you give me one of your marbles, I'll have twice as many as
you.'
I wondered how many marbles each had! What do you think?
5. My friend Shuba works in a post office, and she sells stamps. One day a man walked in and kept seventy-
five paise on the counter and requested, 'Please give me some 2 paise stamps, six times as many one paisa
stamp, and for the rest of the amount give some 5 paise stamps.' The bewildered Shuba thought for a few
moments and finally she handed over the exact fulfilment of the order to the man—with a smile. How would you
have handled the situation?
6. During one of my tours to London, I came across a very interesting game participated by two players. A group of
match sticks is placed on the table and then it is reduced in turn by each player by removing from the group at
least 1 but not more than 4 match sticks. The player who takes the last match stick is the winner. If there is a
group of 23 match sticks on the table how would you make your first move, if it was your turn and how would
you continue to play to win?
7. While driving through the countryside one day I saw a farmer tending his pigs and ducks in his yard. I was curious
to know how many of each he had. I stopped the car and inquired. Leaning on the stile jovially, he replied, 'I have
altogether 60 eyes and 86 feet between them.' I drove off trying to calculate in my mind the exact number of
ducks and pigs he had. What do you think is the answer?
8. A man I know runs a workshop in Calcutta. He bought two lathes to use in his workshop. However, he found out
afterwards that they did not serve the purpose for which he had bought them, and so he decided to sell them.
He sold them each for Rs. 600 making a loss of 20% on one of them and a profit of 20% on the other. Did he loss
or gain in the transaction, and how much did each machine cost him?
9. An unscrupulous trader decided to make some extra profit on coffee. He bought one type of coffee powder at
Rs. 32 a kilo and mixed some of it with a better quality of coffee powder bought at Rs. 40 a kilo, and he sold the
blend at Rs. 43 a kilo. That gave him a profit of 25 per cent on the cost. How many kilos of each kind must he use
to make a blend of a hundred kilos weight?
10. A man owns a horse, a cow and a sheep. He also owns a pasture to graze them [Link] the horse and cow can eat
the contents of the pasture in 40 days, while the horse and sheep can do it in 60 days and the cow and the sheep
in 90 days, how long should it take all of them eating together?
11. Ten token numbers 1 through 10 are distributed among 5 boys J, K, L, M, and N. The numbers on the tokens that
K gets are perfect squares. The numbers on the tokens that M gets are all multiples of three. L is the only person
who gets exactly one token and the number on his token is equal to sum of the numbers on N’s tokens. N gets
exactly two tokens, both of which bear even numbers and one of which bears a number which is also a multiple
of [Link] is the sum of the numbers on J’s tokens?
12. Some years back I was travelling by a cargo ship from New Zealand to Tahiti. I was curious to look around the
ship one day and in the boiler room I asked a man how old the ship was. He smiled and replied to me in this way:
'The ship is twice as old as its boiler was when the ship was as old as the boiler is now. And the combined age of
the ship and the boiler is thirty years.'Can you figure out what is the age of the ship and of the boiler?
13. A railway track runs parallel to a road until a bend brings the road to a level crossing. A cyclist rides along to work
along the road every day at a constant speed of 12 miles per hour. He normally meets a train that travels in the
same direction at the crossing. One day he was late by 25 minutes and met the train 6 miles ahead of the level
crossing. Can you figure out the speed of the train?
14. A man I know fell in love with a woman who lived 63 miles away. Finally, he decided to propose marriage to his
beloved and invited her to travel towards his place and offered to meet her on route and bring her home. The
man is able to cover 4 miles per hour to the woman's 3 miles per hour. How far will each have travelled upon
meeting?
15. I decided to drive through the country leisurely, and on the first day I did only 7 miles. On the last day I did 51
miles, increasing my journey 4 miles each day. How many days did I travel and how far?
16. Supposing a clock takes 7 seconds to strike 7. how long will the same clock take to strike 10?
17. One day I found a strange thing happening to my watch—the minute hand and the hour hand were coming
together every sixty-five minutes. I decided to have it checked Was my watch gaining or losing time, and how
much per hour?
18. The combined ages of Reena and Seena are 44 years and Reena is twice as old as Seena was when Reena was
half as old as Seena will be when Seena is three times as old as Reena was when Reena was three times as old as
Seena. How old is Reena?
19. Mayor Brogan was a man of great honesty. The other day he went to his favourite Haberdashery store and said
to the man in the hat department, “I want that $10.00 hat in the window. If you lend me as much as I have in my
pocket I’ll buy it”.The sales man said ok and gave him the money. The mayor then paid cash for the hat. Next he
went to the suit department and bought a $10.00 jacket using the same proposition. On the way out he stopped
in the Shoe department and bought a $10.00 pair of shoes, paying in the same way. When he left the store, he
had no money in his pockets. How much money did Brogan have when he first entered the store?
20. P, K, R, S, T and U sit around a hexagonal table in such a way that neither P nor R sits opposite to K and neither T
nor U sits opposite to S, whereas R sits to the immediate left of [Link] K sits to the immediate right of S, then who
sits opposite to S?
21. My room has a square window of 4 feet across and 4 feet down. I decided to get only half the area of the
window painted. Even after the painting I found that the clear part of the window still remained a square and
still measured 4 feet from top to bottom and 4 feet from side to side. How is it possible?
22. An artist wanted to paint a picture on a canvas which would allow for a margin of 4 inches on top and bottom
and two inches on each side. He wanted the picture itself to occupy 72 square inches. What would be the
smallest dimensions, the canvas he is going to obtain, should possess?
23. Can you place 10 coins in such a way that they lie in 5 straight lines and on each line there are 4 coins. There are
at least two solutions.
SESSION WISE PROBLEMS
1. On dividing a number by 357, we get 39 as remainder. On dividing the same number by 17, what will
be the remainder ?
2. If the number 42573 * is exactly divisible by 72, then the minimum value of * is
3. The average of five consecutive odd numbers is 61. What is the difference between highest and lowest
numbers?
4. A grocer has a sale of Rs. 6435, Rs. 6927, Rs. 6855, Rs. 7230 and Rs. 6562 for 5 consecutive months. How
much sale must he have in the sixth month so that he gets an average sale of Rs. 6500.
5. Difference of two numbers is 1660. If 7.5% of one number is 12.5% of the other number, find the two
numbers?
6. If A’s salary is 10% more than that of B, then how much percent is B’s salary less than that of A?
7. Prize money in a lottery total $3801 and is shared among three winners in the ratio
4:2:1. How much does the first prize winner receive?
8. If Rs 510 be divided among A,B,C in such a way that A gets 2/3 of what B gets and B Gets ¼ of what C gets,
then their shares are respectively.
9. x varies inversely as square of y. Given that y=2 for x=1. The value of x for
y = 6 will be equal.
10. The price of fully installed combination condensing boiler is increased by 6.5%. It originally cost $2400.
What is the new price?
11. 100 oranges are bought at the rate of Rs. 350 and sold at the rate of Rs. 48 per dozen. The percentage of
profit or loss is?
12. A and B can do a piece of work in 72 days, B and C can do the same work in 120 days; A and C can do it in
90 days. In what time can A alone do it?
13. A motor car starts with the speed of 70 km/hr with its speed increasing every 2 hours by 10 kmph. In
how many hours will it cover 345 kms?
14. On what dates of July.2004 did Monday fall
15. What was the day of the week on1st April, 2020?
16. What is the reflex angle between the two hands of a clock at 3:45?
17. At what time between 3 and 4 O’ clock the two hands of a clock coincide?
18. Four girls are sitting on a bench to be photographed. Shikha is to the left of Reena.
Manju is to the right of Reena. Rita is between Reena and Manju. Who would be
second from the left in the photograph?
19. In a March Past, seven persons are standing in a row. Q is standing left to R but right to
P. O is standing right to N and left to P. Similarly, S is standing right to R and left to T.
Find out who is standing in the middle.
20. 64 small but identical cubes have been put together to form a large cube. How many more such small
cubes will be required to cover this large cube completely
21. 125 smaller but identical cubes have been put together to form a larger cube. This larger cube is now
painted on all 6 [Link] many of the smaller cubes have no face painted at all?
22. Identify which of the conclusions logically follows from the Statements:
[Link] books are pens. 2. All pens are pencils.
Conclusions:
I. some pencils are books.
II. All pencils are pens.
A) If only conclusion I follows.
B) If only conclusion II follows.
C) If neither conclusion I nor conclusion II follows.
D) If both conclusion I and conclusion II follows.
23. Identify which of the conclusions logically follows from the Statements:
[Link] politicians are corrupt. [Link] corrupt people are leaders
a. Some leaders are politician b. All politicians are leaders
c. All leaders are politicians d. None of the above
24. If in a certain language MADRAS is coded as NBESBT, how is BOMBAY coded in that code?
A. CPNCBX b. CPNCBZ c. CPOCBZ d. CQOCBZ e. None of these
25. In a certain code, TRIPPLE is written as SQHOOKD How is DISPOSE written in that code ?
A. CHRONRD b. DSOESPI c. ESJTPTF d. ESOPSID e. None of these