Lateral Thinking Exercises

“thinking outside the box”

1. Remove one letter to leave a chair

HCAIR
2. Picture ‘A’ shows Polly the parrot in her cage. Where’s Polly gone in picture ‘B’?

3. Someone has stolen the petty cash from the office safe. Mr. Always, Mr. Now, Mr.
Sometimes, Mr. Tomorrow and Mr. Ever are under suspicion. Who?, what?, when?, how?
and where?. The culprit, guilty by association, is Mr. *. Can you figure out who did it?

4. What magic word does this wizard say? (6 letters)

 Lateral Thinking Answers

1. HINT FOR CHAIR PUZZLE: Remove one of the letters, and leave the resulting space
that is created. Read this as it appears, and it will sound similar to a chair. ANSWER
FOR CHAIR PUZZLE: Take away C to leave ‘H-AIR’ which sounds like “a chair”.

2. HINT FOR POLLY PUZZLE: Reread the question. The thing it is asking about can be
seen in both cages. ANSWER FOR POLLY PUZZLE: At the bottom of the cage where
there is a polygon (Polly gone).

3. HINT FOR GUILTY PUZZLE: The 5 words given can each be made into new words by
placing one of the names after them. ANSWER FOR GUILTY PUZZLE: Mr. Ever
because ‘ever’ can be placed after ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘where’ to form new
words.

4. HINT FOR WIZARD PUZZLE: The wizard's features form letters, which can be put
together to make a word that is related to magic. ANSWER FOR WIZARD PUZZLE:
VOODOO. The wizard’s head, eyes, nose, mouth and hat are made up of the letters in
‘VOODOO’