A good tricky question works because your brain answers before you have finished thinking. Psychologist Shane Frederick built a whole test on that idea: his Cognitive Reflection Test, published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2005, asks three short questions with an obvious but wrong answer. Across 3,428 respondents, 33% got none of the three right and only 17% got all three. We see the same thing when we run riddle rounds in live AhaSlides quizzes: the room splits on the first gut answer, then groans together at the reveal.
Below are 57 tricky questions with answers in three rounds: 21 funny riddles, 20 mind-bending brain teasers, and 16 maths and logic puzzles, including Frederick’s three originals. Every answer sits right under its question, so you can play along or read them out as a quiz host.
Funny tricky questions with answers
Start here to warm a room up. These lean on puns and double meanings, so the answers get a laugh rather than a groan. Our pick: “What has four letters, sometimes has nine, but never has five?”, because people argue about it until someone reads it out slowly.
Wordplay riddles6 questions
1What is so fragile it breaks even when you mention it?
AnswerSilence.
2What begins with an “e”, ends with an “e”, but only has one letter in it?
AnswerAn envelope.
3What starts with a “t”, ends with a “t”, and is full of “t”?
AnswerA teapot.
4What has four letters, sometimes has nine, but never has five?
AnswerIt is a statement, not a question. The word “what” has four letters, “sometimes” has nine, and “never” has five, so every part is simply true.
5What can you keep even after you have given it to someone else?
AnswerYour word.
6What has a ring but no finger?
AnswerA telephone.
Everyday objects in disguise8 questions
7I am not alive, but I grow; I do not have lungs, but I need air; I do not have a mouth, but water kills me. What am I?
AnswerFire.
8What runs but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, and has a bed but never sleeps?
AnswerA river.
9What has a heart that does not beat?
AnswerAn artichoke.
10What goes up and down but always stays in the same place?
AnswerA staircase.
11I am not alive, but I can die. What am I?
AnswerA battery.
12What gets wetter the more it dries?
AnswerA towel.
13I am tall when I am young, and short when I am old. What am I?
AnswerA candle.
14What has a neck and a cap but no head?
AnswerA bottle.
Trick questions7 questions
15What is the biggest problem with snow boots?
AnswerThey melt. The joke is that the boots are made of snow.
16A 30-metre chain ties a tiger to a tree. There is a patch of grass 31 metres from the tree. How does the tiger reach the grass?
AnswerIt does not need to. Tigers are carnivores, so the grass never tempts it.
17What can you hold in your left hand but never in your right hand?
AnswerYour right elbow.
18What has four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?
AnswerA person, who crawls as a baby, walks as an adult, and leans on a stick in old age.
19What goes up but never comes back down?
AnswerYour age.
20Which month of the year has 28 days?
AnswerAll of them.
21What can you catch but never throw?
AnswerA cold.
Mind-bending tricky questions with answers
These riddles describe everyday things in a strange way, so the answer hides in plain sight. Our pick: “Which one do you open first?”, since nearly everyone jumps straight to the fridge.
Answers hiding in plain sight6 questions
22What is always right in front of you, but you can never see it?
AnswerThe future.
23What is always coming but never arrives?
AnswerTomorrow.
24The more you take of it, the more you leave behind. What is it?
AnswerFootsteps.
25The more of it there is, the less you see. What is it?
AnswerDarkness.
26What happens once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?
AnswerThe letter “m”.
27Written in capital letters, which five-letter word still reads the same when you turn it upside down?
AnswerSWIMS.
Objects that play tricks10 questions
28What has keys but cannot open a single lock?
AnswerA keyboard (a piano also counts).
29What can be cracked, made, told, and played?
AnswerA joke.
30What has branches, but no bark, no leaves, and no fruit?
AnswerA bank.
31What must be broken before you can use it?
AnswerAn egg.
32What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and grey when you throw it away?
AnswerCharcoal.
33What has a thumb and four fingers but is not alive?
AnswerA glove.
34What has one eye but cannot see?
AnswerA needle.
35What can go up a chimney down, but cannot go down a chimney up?
AnswerAn umbrella. It fits when closed (down), but not when open (up).
36What is full of holes but still holds water?
AnswerA sponge.
37I have cities, but no houses. I have forests, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?
AnswerA map.
Read the question twice4 questions
38What happens if you throw a red T-shirt into the Black Sea?
AnswerIt gets wet.
39Why did the man run around his bed at night?
AnswerTo catch up on his sleep.
40Name two things you cannot eat before breakfast.
AnswerLunch and dinner.
41At 7am you are fast asleep when there is a loud knock at the door. Your parents are outside, ready for breakfast. In the fridge you have bread, coffee, juice and butter. Which one do you open first?
AnswerThe door.
Maths and logic tricky questions with answers
The first three are the original Cognitive Reflection Test questions; the rest mix real arithmetic with a few logic traps dressed up as sums. For more practice, try our maths quiz questions. Our pick: the bat and the ball, as the answer that jumps out first (10p) is wrong.
Cognitive Reflection Test classics3 questions
42A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Answer5p. If the ball were 10p, the bat would be £1.10 and the pair would cost £1.20.
43If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
Answer5 minutes. Each machine makes one widget in 5 minutes, however many machines there are.
44A patch of lily pads doubles in size every day. If it takes 48 days to cover the whole lake, how long does it take to cover half the lake?
Answer47 days. It doubles on the last day, so it was half the size the day before.
Number puzzles6 questions
45If 3 people can paint 3 houses in 3 days, how many people are needed to paint 6 houses in 6 days?
Answer3 people. Each person paints one house every 3 days, so in 6 days three people finish 6 houses.
46How can you add eight 8s to make exactly 1000?
Answer888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1000.
47What is the next number in this sequence: 32, 45, 60, 77, ___?
Answer96. The gaps grow by two each time: +13, +15, +17, +19, so 77 + 19 = 96.
48What is the value of X in the equation 2X + 5 = X + 10?
AnswerX = 5. Subtract X and 5 from both sides and you are left with X = 5.
49What is the total of the first 20 even numbers?
Answer420. That is 2 + 4 + 6 + … + 40, which equals 2 × (1 + 2 + … + 20), or 2 × 210.
50Is there a place where you can add 2 to 11 and end up with 1?
AnswerA clock. Two hours after 11 o’clock is 1 o’clock.
Logic traps7 questions
51A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 run away. How many are left?
Answer9. “All but 9” means nine stayed.
52A bowl holds six apples. If you take four apples away, how many do you have?
AnswerFour, the ones you took.
53How many sides does a house have?
AnswerTwo, the inside and the outside.
54Ten ostriches are standing in a field. If four of them decide to fly away, how many are left in the field?
AnswerTen. Ostriches cannot fly.
55How can you go 25 days without sleep?
AnswerBy sleeping at night. The question only asks about the days.
56A man lives on the 100th floor. On rainy days he rides the lift all the way up. On sunny days he only rides to the 50th floor and walks the rest. Why?
AnswerHe is too short to reach the top button, so he can only press up to the 50th floor. On rainy days he uses his umbrella to reach the 100th-floor button.
57Everyone at a dinner who drank the iced punch fell ill, except two guests who drank it too. How is that possible?
AnswerThe poison was frozen into the ice cubes. The two who stayed well drank quickly, before the ice had time to melt; everyone who sipped slowly let the poison seep into their glass.
How to run your own tricky questions quiz
Reading riddles aloud is fun; watching a whole room commit to the wrong answer is better. AhaSlides turns your questions into a live quiz that people join from their phones. Here is how to set one up.
- Sign up for free. Create an AhaSlides account and start a new presentation, or pick a quiz template from the library.
- Match the slide type to the question. Riddles work best as Short Answer slides, where players type what they think the answer is, so nobody can guess from a list of options. Use Pick Answer for multiple choice, and True or False for quick maths checks.
- Mix in a puzzle round. Match Pairs and Correct Order slides make good bonus rounds between riddles.
- Present it live. Share the join code, and the leaderboard updates after every question. If people would rather play in their own time, set the quiz to self-paced instead.
Keep each question on screen for 20 to 30 seconds. That is long enough for the trick to land, and short enough that nobody has time to talk themselves out of their first answer. For more quiz formats, see our list of interactive presentation games.
Frequently asked questions
What are tricky questions?
Tricky questions are designed to mislead you, usually by inviting an obvious answer that turns out to be wrong. They reward slowing down, reading the wording carefully and thinking in an unusual way, which is why people use them for fun and to test problem-solving.
What is the most famous tricky question?
The bat and ball question from the Cognitive Reflection Test is one of the best known: a bat and a ball cost £1.10, the bat costs £1 more than the ball, so how much is the ball? Most people’s first answer is 10p, but the right answer is 5p. The riddle of the Sphinx, about what walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening, is even older.
What are the hardest questions in the world?
The hardest questions are often the ones with no settled answer, so the list is subjective. Common examples include what came first, the chicken or the egg; can something come from nothing; what is the nature of consciousness; and what is the ultimate fate of the universe?
What are some good tricky questions for a quiz?
Pick questions with one clear answer that everyone accepts once it is revealed. The trick questions above, such as the ostriches, the 28-day month and the bat and ball, work in almost any quiz. For a broader mix, add a round from our general knowledge quiz questions.
