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Printable riddle sheet — Ages 10–12

56 riddles, ready to print — with the answer key on its own page.

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Ages 10–12 — Brain Champs riddle sheet

56 riddles across 4 categories · write your guess on the line, then check the answer key at the end.

Wordplay

  1. 1. A farmer has 17 sheep, and all but 9 run away. How many sheep does the farmer have left?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

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

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  3. 3. I am an odd number. Take away just one letter from my name, and I become even. What number am I?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  4. 4. You spot a boat full of people out on the lake, yet you can honestly say there isn't a single person on board. How can that be?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  5. 5. What five-letter word becomes shorter every time you add two letters to it?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  6. 6. Here's a word puzzle: the first two letters refer to a male, the first three letters refer to a female, the first four letters refer to a great person, and the whole word names a great woman. What's the word?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  7. 7. Forward, I weigh a lot. Backward, I mean 'no.' What word am I?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  8. 8. I begin with the letter E and end with the letter E, but usually I only hold one letter inside me. What am I?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  9. 9. I am full of words, yet I have never spoken a single one out loud. What am I?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  10. 10. I open no doors and turn no locks, yet a piano can't play a single song without me. What am I?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

Math & Logic

  1. 11. It's 3:15 on a clock. What is the angle between the hour hand and the minute hand, in degrees?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  2. 12. I am a three-digit number. My tens digit is five more than my ones digit, and my hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit. What number am I?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  3. 13. Using only the digit 8 and the plus sign, how can you add together eight 8s to make exactly 1,000?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  4. 14. Pick any number. Double it, add 10, divide the result by 2, then subtract your original number. No matter what number you start with, you'll always end up with the same answer. What is it?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  5. 15. Can you find three positive whole numbers where adding them together gives you the exact same result as multiplying them together?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  6. 16. A bat and a ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs exactly $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  7. 17. In a class, exactly half the students are girls. If 3 more girls join the class, girls would make up 60% of the class. How many students were originally in the class?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  8. 18. Pick any number. Double it, add 6, divide the result by 2, then subtract your original number. What do you always end up with?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  9. 19. A snail is at the bottom of a 10-meter well. Each day it climbs up 3 meters, but each night it slides back down 2 meters. How many days does it take the snail to reach the top?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  10. 20. You have 8 identical-looking coins. One is a fake that's slightly heavier than the rest. Using a balance scale, what's the fewest number of weighings you need to guarantee finding the fake?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

Lateral Thinking

  1. 21. Two fathers and two sons go fishing together. Each of them catches exactly one fish, but they only bring home 3 fish in total. How is that possible?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  2. 22. You have two ropes and a lighter. Each rope takes exactly 60 minutes to burn all the way through, but they burn unevenly — some parts fast, some parts slow. How can you measure exactly 45 minutes?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  3. 23. A man is looking at a photograph and says: "I have no brothers and no sisters, but this man's father is my father's son." Whose photo is he looking at?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  4. 24. A red house is built from red bricks. A blue house is built from blue bricks. A pink house is built from pink bricks. What is a greenhouse built from?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  5. 25. You're standing inside a one-story house where absolutely everything is pink — the walls, the furniture, even the curtains. What color are the stairs?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  6. 26. A man is pushing his car when he stops at a hotel — and suddenly realizes he's bankrupt. What's going on?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  7. 27. A girl says she is 10 years old, but she has only celebrated 2 birthdays. How is that possible?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  8. 28. What can you hold in your left hand any day of the week, but can never actually hold using your right hand itself?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  9. 29. Which is heavier: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  10. 30. A thirsty man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. Instead, the bartender reaches under the counter, pulls out a gun, and points it right at him. The man smiles, says 'thank you,' and calmly walks out without ever getting his water. What just happened?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  11. 31. A man leaves his house, walks in a straight line, then turns left. He walks the same distance again and turns left a second time. He walks the same distance a third time, turns left once more, and ends up back at his own house — where two people wearing masks are waiting for him. He isn't in any danger. What's going on?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  12. 32. "I was born in 1955 and I died in 1935, at the age of 25." How can that sentence be true?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  13. 33. A boy stood outside in a heavy rainstorm for a whole hour with no umbrella, no hat, and no hood — yet not one hair on his head got wet. How is that possible?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  14. 34. A man stands on one bank of a wide river and calls his dog, who is standing on the opposite bank. The dog runs straight across to him without getting wet, without swimming, and without using a bridge or a boat. How?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  15. 35. Mary's mother has four children. Three of them are named April, May, and June. What is the fourth child's name?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  16. 36. A woman has three daughters, and each of her daughters has exactly one brother. How many children does the woman have in total?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  17. 37. You have two coins that add up to 30 cents in total, and one of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  18. 38. A rope ladder hangs over the side of a boat floating in the ocean, with 6 rungs showing above the waterline. Each rung is 20 cm apart, and the tide is rising at 20 cm per hour. After 3 hours, how many rungs are still showing above the water?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

Trivia

  1. 39. What is the largest planet in our solar system?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  2. 40. How many continents are there on Earth?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  3. 41. What is the tallest mountain in the world, measured from sea level?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  4. 42. How many legs does a spider have?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  5. 43. What gas do plants absorb from the air to help make their own food?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  6. 44. What is the freezing point of water, in degrees Celsius?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  7. 45. Which planet is known as the "Red Planet"?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  8. 46. About how many bones are in the adult human body?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  9. 47. What is the smallest planet in our solar system?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  10. 48. What is the largest organ in the human body?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  11. 49. What is a baby kangaroo called?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  12. 50. How many hearts does an octopus have?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  13. 51. What is the largest desert in the world?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  14. 52. How many chambers does the human heart have?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  15. 53. What is the hardest naturally occurring substance on Earth?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  16. 54. What is the chemical formula for water?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  17. 55. About how many teeth does an adult human have, including wisdom teeth?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

  18. 56. What is the tallest land animal in the world?

    My guess: ______________________________________________

Answer key — Ages 10–12

Wordplay

  1. 1. 9 — "All but 9 ran away" means 9 stayed behind.
  2. 2. The letter M
  3. 3. Seven — Remove the 's' from "seven" and it spells "even."
  4. 4. Everyone on the boat is married — Nobody on board is "single."
  5. 5. Short — Add "er" and it becomes "shorter."
  6. 6. Heroine — HE, HER, HERO, HEROINE.
  7. 7. Ton — "Ton" spelled backward is "not."
  8. 8. An envelope — It usually holds one written letter (a piece of mail).
  9. 9. A book
  10. 10. A (musical) key

Math & Logic

  1. 11. 7.5 degrees — The minute hand sits at 90°; the hour hand has moved a quarter of the way from 3 to 4, landing at 97.5°.
  2. 12. 194 — Ones = 4, tens = 4 + 5 = 9, hundreds = 9 − 8 = 1.
  3. 13. 888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000
  4. 14. 5 — The math always simplifies to 5, no matter which number you start with.
  5. 15. 1, 2, and 3 — 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, and 1 × 2 × 3 = 6.
  6. 16. 5 cents — If the ball costs x, the bat costs x + $1.00, so 2x + $1.00 = $1.10, meaning x = $0.05.
  7. 17. 12 — Start with 12 students (6 girls). Adding 3 girls makes 9 girls out of 15 students — 60%.
  8. 18. 3 — The math always simplifies to 3, no matter which number you start with.
  9. 19. 8 days — The snail nets 1 meter a day for 7 days (reaching 7m), then climbs the final 3m on day 8 and gets out before it can slide back.
  10. 20. 2 weighings — Split the coins 3-3-2. Weigh the two groups of 3 first, then narrow down with one more weighing.

Lateral Thinking

  1. 21. There are only three people: a grandfather, his son, and his son's son. — The middle person is both a father and a son at the same time.
  2. 22. Light one rope at both ends and the other rope at one end, all at the same time. The first rope finishes in 30 minutes (the two flames meet in the middle). The instant it finishes, light the second rope's other end too — now it burns from both ends and finishes in the remaining 15 minutes. — 30 minutes + 15 minutes = 45 minutes total.
  3. 23. His own son's photo — "My father's son," with no siblings, can only mean himself — so the man in the photo is his son.
  4. 24. Glass — A greenhouse is made of glass, not green bricks — it's a trick of the pattern.
  5. 25. There are no stairs — It's a one-story house.
  6. 26. He's playing the board game Monopoly — The car is his game piece, and he landed on a hotel he couldn't afford to pay rent on.
  7. 27. She was born on February 29th — A leap day only comes around once every four years.
  8. 28. Your right hand — Your right hand can't grab and hold itself, no matter how you try.
  9. 29. Neither — they weigh exactly the same — One pound is one pound; the bricks just take up a lot less space.
  10. 30. He had the hiccups, and the shock of the gun scared them away — so he no longer needed the water.
  11. 31. He's a baseball player running the bases. The three left turns trace the diamond from first base to second to third and back home, and the 'masked men' are the catcher and the umpire. — Running the bases counter-clockwise means turning left at every base, and catchers and umpires both wear protective masks.
  12. 32. 1955 and 1935 are hospital room numbers, not years — he was born in Room 1955 and, many years later, died in Room 1935, at age 25. — Nothing says those four-digit numbers have to be dates.
  13. 33. He doesn't have any hair — he's bald.
  14. 34. The river is frozen solid, so the dog simply runs across the ice.
  15. 35. Mary — The answer is right in the question — she's "Mary's mother," so the fourth child is Mary.
  16. 36. Four — All three daughters share the very same one brother — it's not three separate brothers, so the total is 3 daughters + 1 son = 4.
  17. 37. A quarter and a nickel — "One of them is not a nickel" is true — the quarter isn't a nickel. It never said the other coin wasn't.
  18. 38. Still 6 rungs — The boat floats, so it rises with the tide right along with the water — the ladder rises too, and the same 6 rungs stay above the waterline.

Trivia

  1. 39. Jupiter
  2. 40. 7
  3. 41. Mount Everest
  4. 42. 8
  5. 43. Carbon dioxide
  6. 44. 0°C
  7. 45. Mars
  8. 46. 206
  9. 47. Mercury
  10. 48. The skin
  11. 49. A joey
  12. 50. 3 — Two smaller hearts pump blood to the gills, and one main heart pumps it to the rest of the body.
  13. 51. Antarctica — A desert is defined by how little rain or snow it gets, not by sand — and Antarctica gets less precipitation than the Sahara, making it the largest desert by area.
  14. 52. 4
  15. 53. Diamond
  16. 54. H2O
  17. 55. 32
  18. 56. The giraffe

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