RIDDLES

Alternate answers may be possible. (e.g., What is always in front of you but can’t be seen? Answer: The future.)

Freshman level

1. Where can you find a hammer and an anvil in your body?

2. A bathtub is full of water. You have a bucket and a cup. What is the fastest way to empty the tub?

3. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?

Graduate level

4. How is 7 different from the other numbers between 1 and 10?

5. What can you keep after giving it to someone?

6. I am the beginning of everything, and the end of time and space. What am I?

Ph.D. level

7. How can you write eight 8s so they add up to 1,000?

8. What are the next three letters in this sequence: O, T, T, F, F, S, S?

9. What English word retains the same pronunciation, even after you take away four of its five letters?

Answers: 1. In your ear. 2. Pull the plug. 3. The letter “m.” 4. Seven has two syllables, not one. 5. Your word. 6. The letter “e.” 7. 888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000. 8. E, N, T (the first letter of written numbers: eight, nine, ten are next). 9. Queue.

— North America Syndicate