How smart are you? Try these brain teasers

Puzzles to boggle your mind

Elsa Vulliamy
Tuesday 23 February 2016 08:30 EST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Head shot of Andrew Feinberg

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A numerical puzzle involving apples, bananas and coconuts took Facebook by storm last week.

If you missed it. Here it is:

At first glance it looks like a fairly simple equation.

If three apples add up to 30, then an apple must be worth 10.

If one apple and two banana bunches add up to 18, then a banana bunch must be worth 4.

That means if banana bunch minus coconut is equal to two then a coconut must be worth two.

So what about the last equation?

Coconut (2) + apple (10) + bananas (4) = 16.

But it’s not as easy as it looks, looking closely at the puzzle we can see that there is only one half of a coconut in the last line, and only three bananas in the bunch.

So actually, the equation is

Half a coconut (1) + apple (10) + 3 bananas (3) = 14.

If this fruity equation has got you into the mood for brain teasers, check out the ones below.

For these first ones, you need to engage your sense of spatial awareness and visualise where the objects need to go to reach the end goal.

(DK)
(DK)
(DK)
(DK)

Some of the above can take a while to figure out, especially the last one - but all of them are possible.

If you decide you're going to have to give up, the answers are below.

Answers:

(DK)
(DK)
(DK)

Puzzles taken from Mindbenders, £15.99, dk.com

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in