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Year 13; Issue 5; October 2011, ISSN

AN OLD EXERCISE
1755-9715
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Some Old Exercises From 'Challenge to Think' - Humanising ...

Some Old Exercises From "Challenge to Think"

Peter Clements, UK

Peter Clement’s main work is teaching ESOL Adult and Community Learning in
the UK. There is always a lot to cover in his classes including citizenship content
and preparation for the Trinity Skills for Life ESOL exams. Individual targets are
also negotiated with students for their Individual Learning Plans which are
reviewed at regular intervals. So all of this keeps him and his students pretty
busy, but thankfully, not so busy that they don’t have time for some fun and
spontaneity in class. With that in mind, he has compiled the following article for
‘An Old Exercise’ based on experiences using the excellent book ‘Challenge to
Think’. He lives on the coast with his wife and son near Canterbury, UK, and his
other interests include cycling, enjoying jazz and occasionally blowing the dust
off his guitar.
E-mail: peter.clements@talktalk.net

Menu

Introduction
Puzzle stories
Matchings
Two-In-One Stories
Deduction Puzzles
Conclusion
Further examples from the book
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See also

Introduction

I first saw an old and well-worn copy of this publication on the resource shelves
while teaching on adult intensive classes at a school of English in Canterbury last
year. Being pleased with the way the activities and approaches were received in
class, I was then fortunate to get hold of an old copy myself, albeit the student
version - without answers – so I had the great challenge of thinking too
(thankfully I have recently managed to obtain a copy of the teacher version)!
There are so many great activities in this book, which in addition to language
stimulates the thinking process and enhances creativity and imagination.

Puzzle stories

‘Aim: Practice in asking correct questions. Students are given an unexplained

story. By asking a large number of questions, they eliminate wrong and irrelevant
explanations of the story and find out what it is really about.’

The aim of these activities is to generate curiosity and prompt speculation and
hypothesis about seemingly impossible or unlikely situations using so-called
‘lateral thinking’. Being presented with an unlikely or bizarre scenario, students
have to ask questions in order to solve the mystery. The teacher or another person
who holds the solution is allowed to answer simply ‘yes’, ‘no’ (and the
occasional ‘It doesn’t matter' or ‘ask me differently’).

Example from the book: ‘Two men look up around a corner and see something
that makes them want to go down.’
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Here is a typical line of reasoning:

Q.Were the two men in the street?

A. No.
Q. Were they in a building?
A. No
Q. Were they inside somewhere?
A. Yes.
Q. Were they in a lift?
A. No
Q. Were they in a tower?
A. (hesitantly) er….No
Q. Was it a vehicle?
A. Yes
Q. A car? A bus?
A. No.
Q. A lorry?
A. No
Q. A boat, a ship?
A. Yes, Yes!
Q. A cargo ship?
A. No.
Q. A passenger liner?
A. No
Q. A warship?
A. Yes…sort of…
Q. What kind? A destroyer?
A. No.
Q. A boat that goes under the sea?
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A. Yes – A submarine.
Q. ‘They looked up ...around a corner’? I know! They looked through one of
those…
A. Yes…?
Q. One of those things and saw something on the water….
A. Yes…
Q. ….it was an enemy boat and they needed to go down below the water.
T. That’s it! They were looking through the periscope of their submarine.

Black Stories and Lateral Thinking Puzzles

This activity worked extremely well with a class of advanced Austrian students
last summer. German speakers are familiar with a card game called ‘Black
Stories’ by Holger Bösch where the stories are presented in the form of a pack
of cards.
After presenting a couple of examples from ‘Challenge to Think’, the students
wished to continue with examples they knew themselves. This gave the students
complete ownership of the lesson and was enjoyable and highly productive as
they were really able to engage their English skills.
In English, these stories have long been known as ‘Lateral Thinking Puzzles’
and numerous additional examples can be found on the internet. For some
reason, their content is usually of a rather morbid nature.
Matchings

‘Aim: For discussion of the meaning of newspaper headlines and captions, and
speculation about what the accompanying articles or cartoons are about.
Followed by fast reading of the actual articles to match them to the headlines’

This is a versatile activity included in the ‘Reading and Speaking’ section of the
book. Typically, on one page, there is a collection of headlines with their
corresponding short articles or a section of an article on the other.

Having the 1983 impression of the book, naturally the articles appear dated and
some of the language is outdated (e.g.: ‘Mr. Hart’s car – A black Granada’, *
mentally handicapped children, President Mitterrand’s election programme,
Kenneth Clarke –transport spokesman etc…) so I chose to adapt and simplify the
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idea for my pre-intermediate/ Entry 3 ESOL class. and used recent examples of
newspapers cut and pasted onto an all -in - one poster using a headline, a short
snippet of text and a picture from an article to make up a three-way matching
exercise. Below is a photo of the poster and the activity sheet that was used in
class.

This could be done more interactively of course, by bringing in a bundle of

newspapers and having the students make their own versions in groups and to
then exchange them. They don’t even need the printed sheet but could simply
draw their own table. In hindsight, the students would have benefited more had
they read the headlines first and had time to speak and speculate as to the
meaning before reading the short articles ( this is the procedure recommended in
the book).

The rich variety of language peculiar to headlines and the visual element is
intriguing to students at different levels.
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Two-In-One Stories

‘Aim: An Intensive reading exercise. The lines of two stories are mixed together
out of sequence. Students must separate and sequence the stories. They then tell
each other the stories from memory’

This activity is a lot of fun for students and beneficial in so many different ways.
The stories, found in the ‘Reading and Speaking’ section of the book are amusing
and instructive, usually with a bit of a twist or a punch line at the end. I have used
one of the less challenging ones with some students in an elementary class (The
Railway Ticket / Aesop’s Fable) and others both in pre-intermediate and higher
level classes.

The activity involves separating out two stories and then re-ordering the
sentences. Often familiar with the structure of a story, students usually find the
first sentence of each one with relative ease. Then, using contextual clues and key
words, they can usually separate the content into two distinct stories. It is
interesting too note how they approach the task – some students are well
organised and may mark the sentences with a symbol or A and B to indicate
which sentence belongs to which story; others may need some more detailed
input beforehand as to how to proceed. Then, the students may use a numbering
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system to indicate the order in which the sentences are placed. (For the less able,
it may be an idea to issue the students with scissors to cut the sentences into
strips).

The desired outcome is for students to re-tell the stories from memory but at pre-
intermediate equivalent ESOL students, to have been able to re-order the separate
stories and then to have read them, was in itself a worthwhile achievement.

In the example of ‘Aesop’s Fable’ (Sometimes known as ‘The Travellers and the
Monk’) the ordering is complicated by the element of repetition, a common
feature of story telling. This can throw the students initially and provides good
opportunities for applying reasoning and how the apparent repetition is used for
effect but with appropriate markers to indicate where the sentence appears in the
narrative, e.g.:

Aesop replied, ‘Tell me where you are from and what sort of people live
there, and I’ll tell you what sort of people you’ll find in Athens.’

Again Aesop replied, ‘Tell me where you are from and what sort of people
live there, and I’ll tell you what sort of people you’ll find in Athens.’

Also, the way in which phrases are used to contrast similar situations is typical of
stories. For example, in replying to the two travellers, one with a positive attitude,
the other negative, Aesop’s replies are similar but in a way that after careful
reading becomes apparent:

At this Aesop answered, ’I’m happy to tell you, my dear friend, that you’ll
find the people of Athens much the same.’ ‘I’m afraid you’ll find the people
of Athens much the same,’ was Aesop’s reply.’

My favourite example of a two- in- one story from is: The farmer / The invitation
and depends on students being able to consider other lesser used meanings of
verbs to make sense.

1. ‘Well,’ said the farmer, scratching his chin, ‘I’ll tell you what we do.’

2. ‘Why do I have to use my elbow and my foot?’ asked his friend.

3. A man inviting his friend to his home explained to him where he lived.
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4. The man went back to his car with a puzzled look on his face and said to
his wife, ‘I think he must be crazy.’

5. ‘Come to the third floor,’ he said,’ and where you see the letter E on the
door, push the button with your elbow and when the door opens put your
foot against it.’

6. ‘We eat what we can and what we can’t eat we can.’

7. A curious tourist, after passing a huge field of carrots alongside the road,
stopped and asked the farmer what he did with his large crop.

8. ‘He said they ate what they could and what they couldn’t they could.’

9. ‘Well,’ exclaimed the man, ‘You’re not going to come empty handed are
you?’

When using this with the advanced Austrian class, no explanation was necessary,
they were able to retell the stories with ease and the humourous aspect of the
tourist’s bewilderment was immediately obvious. However, with lower level
groups some elicitation was necessary including sketching a labelled cylindrical
object on the board to indicate the process to which the farmer was referring with
the present simple ‘can’.

(See also Eric K. Taylor Using Folktales Cambridge Handbooks for Language
Teachers)

Deduction Puzzles

“Aim: Intensive reading practice and oral practice of a range of conditionals and
deductive language. Students read a story which poses a problem and answer
questions which lead to the solution.”

These are used in a similar way to the ‘Puzzle Stories’ above but this time the
students are provided with clues in the form of questions that prompt reasoning
which leads to the solution. Some of the puzzles (‘The Lawyers’ ‘The Scientists
and the Watches’ and ‘Four Women’) do not have definitive answers but provide
a good opportunity for discussion about the logic or likelihood of the situation.

As before, the students are presented with a puzzle, which is rather more
convoluted and which requires very careful reading and analysis. The students
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then speculate and some will even make wild guesses as to possible solutions.
This presents a good opportunity for speaking in groups but the students are
unlikely to come up with the solution on their own.

The teacher can then either issue the series of written questions or read them out
gradually and which will lead the students to apply logical deductive skills to
eventually converge on the answer. The questions help them to imagine they are
faced with dilemma and that they are in the situation themselves.

‘The Two Parachutes’ is a good example of this type of puzzle and is reproduced
below as it is presented in the book with the questions:

“Not long ago a man kidnapped a little boy and hid him in the woods. He
sent his parents a ransom note telling them to leave him ten thousand
pounds in an airport locker. They were then to wait four hours and go to the
locker. In it they would find directions to where their child was. He said
that unless they left him the money, they would not see their child for a long
time.
He had thought of taking the child with him as a hostage, but decided
against it. He knew that the police had become good at trapping people who
had hostages with them.
At the appointed time, he went to the airport and found the money in the
locker. He had just enough time to leave the directions and run. The police
were close behind him. He boarded the nearest plane and forced the pilot to
take off before he was caught.
Knowing that the police would be waiting for him when the plane landed,
he came up with a brilliant idea to save himself. He demanded that the
hostess should give him two parachutes. He took her with him to the back
exit door of the plane and waited several minutes. Then he put one of the
parachutes on and jumped alone from the plane. In this way he managed to
escape.
The question is, why did he demand two parachutes?

A board – drawn version of the illustration from the book, used with a group of
advanced Austrian students in 2010, is shown below. The comments on right are
actual student answers.
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1. What would’ve happened if he’d stayed on the plane?

2. Did he have a chance of escaping if he jumped safely?

3. Did he have a better chance of escaping if he had a hostage with him?

4. Why?

5. Say you were the hostess. If he he’d asked you for two parachutes and
taken you with him to the exit door, what would you have thought?

6. What kind of parachutes would you have given him?

7. Why?

In this example the questions lead to one definite right answer whereupon the
student will experience that wonderful ‘aha! moment’ which is immensely
satisfying for them (and the teacher!). One of the other problems requires some
simple maths along with logic (The Sultan and the Cheat) and spatial and
visualisation skills are stimulated by ‘The Prisoners’ and ‘Four women’.

Conclusion

‘Challenge to Think’ is a classic EFL book that is worth its weight in gold. There
are so many other excellent activities contained within its pages – far too many to
go into here. It would be so good for publishers to realise its value for today and
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to make a new edition available, with some updated photos and new newspaper
extracts. Come on you publishers!
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Puzzle Stories

In the late seventies when Berer, Frank and Rinvolucri were writing Challenge to Think they got very
excited about mystery stories which got the students asking fully meaningful questions on the way to
elucidating the mystery.

They put 20 of these in Challenge to Think, which ran from l983 until l998, when Oxford decided it was
time to pull it.

The procedure for using these stories in class is simple:

 Dictate the story

 Tell the students they can suss out the mystery by asking you questions that you can give YES/ N0
answers to.
 If, after a first flush of questions, they can't think of any more, give them a clue and ask everybody to
write two questions.
 Now accept questions from the quieter people in the group.
 The questioning phase should not last more than l0 minutes- it gets draggy otherwise.

Here are 4 stories that are around in the oral tradition and 4 that the writers of Challenge to think came up
with.

1. A man walked into a bar in Texas. He asked for a glass of water. The barman pointed his gun at him.
“Thank you”, the man said and walked out.
2. A man had his arms out through the sides of a phone booth. The phone was off the hook. Outside the
booth there was a black bag on the ground.
3. A woman went from town A to town B by train. The train went through a tunnel. In town B the
woman went to see a person and left the meeting very happy. She took the train back to A. As the
train entered the tunnel she threw herself to her death.
4. There was a small hut in the desert. It was empty except for a dead man hanging by a rope from the
roof. Outside stood a lorry.

Answers:

1. The man had hiccups.

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2. The black bag held a huge fish. The fisherman broke the glass in the sides of the booth as he
gesticulated about his catch. (Gesture is self expression before communication, so people do it even
on the phone)
3. The woman had always been blind so she did not know about light changes in a tunnel. The
operation in town B allowed her to see for the first time.
4. The man stood on the block of ice to hang himself. It was a hot desert.

(If you use an “oral tradition” story one or two of your students may know the answer. If they show signs of
this, ask them to answer the questions, after having taken them outside to check they fully remember the
solution.)

1. All the men from the village were drowned because their boats were stranded.
2. A man with a pack on his back went into a field and died.
3. A woman committed a murder. They police arrested her and took her to court. After hearing her case
the judge did not know what to do about her.
4. He looked up round two corners and saw something that made him want to go down.

Answers

1. The sea receded during an earthquake, stranding the men fishing out in the bay. Twenty minutes later
the sea returned as a six metre high tsunmai. They were all killed. ( This happened in South Chile in
May 1960 )
2. The parachute did not open.
3. She was a Siamese twin.
4. He was looking through a periscope and saw an enemy destroyer.

If you have puzzle stories of your own send them in and HLT will publish them.

Challenge to Think

This issue offers you two old exercises from Challenge to Think, Berer et al., OUP 1982. The book
disappeared from the market place about five years ago.

The two exercises are: Two-in-one Stories and Contradictions

TWO-IN-ONE STORIES
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Intensive reading. Sort out the two stories as quickly as you can. Then re-tell them.

The stork
The company chairman

1. The cook stole a leg from a beautiful roast stork just before it was served to the king.
2. 'But, your Majesty, you didn't clap last night.'
3. He glowered at them, 'Gentlemen, I have something I must say: half of you are idiots.'
4. The king asked him angrily why the bird had only one leg.
5. One day a company chairman got very angry with his board of directors.
6. The king clapped his hands and the birds flew off. 'There,' he said, 'You see, they all have two legs
the moment I clap.'
7. 'Very well,' the chairman said, 'I withdraw it -half of you are not idiots.'
8. Next morning the cook and the king went down to the river and saw the storks all standing on one
leg.
9. One of the directors stood up and banged on the table. 'I demand that you withdraw that last observa-
tion, Mr Chairman.'
10. The cook replied, 'Storks only ever have one leg - come to the river with me tomorrow and I will
show you, Your Majesty.'

The farmer
The invitation

1. 'Well, 'said the farmer, scratching his chin, 'I'll tell you what we do.'
2. 'Why do I have to use my elbow and my foot?' asked his friend.
3. A man inviting his friend to his home explained to him where he lived.
4. The man went back to his car with a puzzled look on his face and said to his wife, 'I think he must be
crazy.'
5. 'Come to the third floor,' he said, 'and where you see the letter E on the door, push the button with
your elbow and when the door opens put your foot against it.'
6. 'We eat what we can and what we can't eat we can.'
7. A curious tourist, after passing a huge field of carrots alongside the road, stopped and asked the
farmer what he did with his large crop.
8. 'He said they ate what they could and what they couldn't they could.'
9. 'Well,' exclaimed the man, 'You're not going to come empty-handed, are you?'
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A stranger in London
The new hedge clipper

1. The stranger got out and ran up to a policeman.

2. He was about half way round his garden when his neighbour arrived.
3. Then he disappeared into Waterloo station.
4. 'Thanks very much,' was the grateful reply.
5. 'Would you mind paying my fare, officer?' he said. 'I've a train to catch.'
6. He called a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Waterloo, mentioning that he had a train to catch
at three o'clock.
7. 'That's all right, at least I can now go back to bed and sleep in peace,' he said, walking back to his
own house.
8. One Saturday morning a friend of mine decided to use his new hedge clipper.
9. The policeman told him and the stranger handed him the money.
10. The job was quickly finished and my friend thanked his neighbour for his help.
11. 'Can I give you a hand?' the neighbour asked my friend.
12. At half past two the taxi drew up at Waterloo, the driver smiling broadly.
13. 'What is the fare from Euston to Waterloo?' he asked the policeman.
14. A stranger arrived at Euston just before midday.
15. For two hours he sat back enjoying the sights of London

The railway ticket

Aesop's fable

1. There were eight of us in the carriage, and seven tickets were soon found and punched.
2. A few hours later a mean-looking travell- er came down the road, and he too stopped and asked
Aesop, 'Tell me, my friend, what are the people of Athens like?'
3. Aesop, the Greek writer of fables, was sitting by the road one day when a friend- ly traveller asked
him, 'What sort of people live in Athens?'
4. 'All tickets, please!' said the railway inspector, appearing at the door of the carriage.
5. Frowning, the man replied, 'I'm from Argos and there the people are unfriend- ly, mean, deceitful
and vicious. They're thieves and murderers, all of them.'
6. 'Funny thing, absence of mind,' said the helpful traveller when the inspector had gone. 'Absence of
mind?' said the old man.
7. But the old man in the corner went on searching through his pockets, looking very unhappy.
8. Aesop replied, 'Tell me where you come from and what sort of people live there, and I'll tell you
what sort of people you'll find in Athens.'
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9. So he was, and the inspector looked anything but pleased as he hastily punched the mangled ticket.
10. Smiling, the man answered, 'I come from Argos, and the people there are all friendly, generous and
warm- hearted. I love them all.'
11. Again Aesop replied, 'Tell me where you come from and what people are like there and I will tell
you what the people are like in Athens.'
12. 'I was chewing off last week's date!'
13. 'You haven't lost your ticket,' said the man next to him, helpfully. You're holding it in your teeth!'
14. At this Aesop answered, 'I'm happy to tell you, my dear friend, that you'll find the people of Athens
much the same.'
15. 'I'm afraid you'll find the people of Athens much the same,' was Aesop's reply.

The loan
The burglar

1. 'That's not so hard, George,' said his father. 'Write to him and say you need the Ł1000 at once.
2. Among my best friends are Joe and his wife Alice, who live in a nice little house near Manchester.
3. 'You mean the Ł500,' George interrupted.
4. The friend proved to be untrustworthy, and as George thought he would lose the Ł500, he asked his
father for advice.
5. The donor neglected to send his name, and all day the couple's question was, 'Wonder who it is?'
6. 'No, I don't!' Say a thousand pounds and he will write back he only owes you Ł500.'
7. There was a note from the burglar propped up on the pillow in the bedroom saying, 'Now you know.'
8. When, as a newly married couple, they had just returned from their honeymoon, they got a plea- sant
surprise in the post one morning - two tickets to the best show in town.
9. George Smith had lent a friend Ł500 but he had nothing in writing confirming the loan.
10. They enjoyed the show; when they reached home they found that their house had been broken into
and that all their wedding presents had been taken.
11. 'Then you'll have it in writing.'

The general's visit

No teeth

1. He immediately ordered a pool and courts to be built.

2. Some weeks later Peter met his friend in the street, and the friend asked him what had happened.
3. Peter had been called up, but he didn't want to join the army, so he asked his friend what he should
do.
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4. When he was asked why he would not give benches to primary children but wanted pri- soners to
have a swimming pool, he replied, 'Do you think I will ever go back to primary school?'
5. His friend said, 'Well, why don't you have all your teeth pulled out? You won't get past the medical
then.'
6. A general visited a primary school where the children said they had no benches to sit on.
7. Some time later he visited a prison. The men there complained they had no swim- ming pool and no
tennis courts.
8. Peter, who had no teeth left, mumbled, 'The officer said I was no good to the army - I've got flat
feet!'
9. He told the kids there were no benches - they must make sacrifices for their country.

( The "general " story originates in the long, dark Kissinger-Pinochet years in Chile )

CONTRADICTIONS

Intensive reading. Read one sentence of the stories at a time, and then comment on what you have read.

1. John Brown is a butcher who always sell good stale bread. One morning last week as he was busy
working in his office a lady came in and ordered six loaves and four apples. John had never had such
a large order before and he suggested bringing the cakes and sandwiches to her house in his van. So
at 10 a.m. after a hard day's work John put on his overcoat and scarf and stepped out into the sunny
June evening. As he approached his customer's tent John took the goods from the basket of his
bicycle and walked up to the front path to hand over the vegetables to the lady waiting in the
reception hall.
2. My neighbour John has just called in to say that he and his wife can come to my party next
Wednesday. So we've arranged to meet outside the cinema at about six o'clock. The main film
showing is the latest James Bond film, starring Sophia Loren, Henry Kissinger and Clark Gable.
After the service the two of us will pro- bably go for a drink. It's a long time since I saw John and his
wife, so I'm looking forward to an enjoyable Saturday evening with them.
3. John Adams is an amateur detective who spends all his time trying to solve crimes. Yesterday at
about nine o'clock in the afternoon he saw his brother Joe walk up to a red car, get into it and ride off
at a steady trot. Three days later at exactly the same time he thought he saw the same thing. He
couldn't be absolutely sure as it was already getting dark and the woman was holding an umbrella
over her face to protect her from the fog. Later that day when Adams had observed several other
suspicious people he walked to the next village and handed his report to the head waiter at New
Scotland Yard.
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4. Smith Billy is a teacher at a riding school. He always gets up at five to prepare his lessons in order to
avoid waking his children by his singing. He takes his noiseless typewriter and writes four or five
pages of notes so he will not hesitate when he lectures to his horses. For variety, when his lessons are
in danger of becoming too interesting, he sometimes copies out a science fiction story from Grimm
or Hans Anderson, which he can dictate to the horses. Occasionally there is an emotional reaction
from his docile donkeys: when the story is sad they laugh. Billy prefers this job to the one he had in a
language school because now his students never take him for a ride.
5. SAN ANTONIO

How about a holiday in San Antonio, the newest resort on the Costa Brighton? The beaches with
sand as soft as concrete, skating in the warm sea and running through the pine forests have been
popular with our regular visitors for over 400 years. The cafes, hospitals and hoverports offer real
Russian dancing, authentic flamenco and fandango accompanied by throbbing chess-playing and
singing to fill your mind with memories to be treasured for minutes.

6. If you want a new car for the family them come along to our surgery and look at our latest
discoveries. We have imported cars as well as a wide range produced in British kitchens. There are
no vehicles here on display so just come along any time to see them. Alternatively you could phone
and we'd be delighted to give you our catalogues personally. We are open from 3 a.m. - 7 a.m., seven
days a year and are looking forward to buying from you the car you've been dreaming of.
7. My friend Peter, who is 23 years old and a bachelor, has just bought a 14th century bungalow on the
estate behind our house. I have known Peter ever since we started school together 32 years ago, and
was delighted to hear he would be living so near. Last Sunday we decided to visit him and his wife in
their new home and we got the bus at the Town Hall. It took us about 35 minutes to get there,
although I have to admit we didn't walk very fast. Peter and his eldest daughter, who had just retur-
ned home from work, were looking out for us through the letterbox and waved as they saw us arrive.
We parked the car at the bus stop, put 75p in the parking meter and ran up the path and in through
the window. Peter's wife was upstairs making tea and she told us that her husband would be home in
about half an hour.
8. Joan lives alone in a large house near the city centre. Every evening she gets up, wakes her family
and gets ready to go to work in the town twelve miles away. She takes her bike out of the stable and
rides off into the warm December morning. As she passes the gardens in front of the rows of shops
she notices the roses that are just coming into bloom. When she stops at the traffic lights she takes
out her thermometer. She sees it's three o'clock and thinks of her mother who will be waiting at home
for her to return from school. As last the traffic lights turn blue and she drives off along the footpath
to her two-room flat.
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9. Three years ago I retired from work and have since spent the whole time travelling. As I didn't get
very much pension my parents gave me Ł100 for my 21st birthday. I took the cross-channel ferry
from Birmingham to Moscow and made my way through Spain to Copenhagen. The gift from my
parents together with the Ł560 a week pension made it possible for me to stay in cheap guest houses
all the time. In Denmark I met my grandson and we spent two days together travelling by boat to
Rome. After two nights at the Hilton Hotel we returned home by taxi. It was a wonderful journey and
a year that I'll never forget.
10. 14 Eaton Terrace
An inferior house with full gas-fired central freezing. It is situated in one of the worst residential
areas of the city close to the local rickshaw service and within flying distance of the airport. The
property, which is poorly built of cardboard under a glass roof, was completed by a local baker about
eight years ago and is in immaculate order throughout. It is regarded as a historical monument
although in need of repair.
11. I have lived in the centre of London for the last ten years and will be moving to a cottage in a small
village next month. When I moved in I was only two years old so I enjoyed the large garden and
fields that surrounded our farm. When I went to school it became more difficult, as I had to take the
underground to the nearest airport and from there went by tractor. Anyway all that is over now and I
am looking forward to the nice little penthouse flat that will soon be my home.
 21

Deduction Puzzles

Challenge to Think (Christine Frank et al, l983) has just been consigned to the knackers' yard by OUP and
so it feels sensible to offer you one of its most intriguing exercise types in this corner of HLT dedicated to
hoary, dusty old things!

Deduction Puzzles are easy to use and are particularly handy if you are teaching a mixed bag of conditionals
to an intermediate class.

Simply pair the students and give them the worksheet that follows. Ask them to read the story and then ask
each other the questions alternately: student A asks questions 1 and B answers it, then B asks question 2 and
A answers it etc…. till they triumphantly find the solution.

Get early finishers to help the students who are at sea and cannot find the solution.

When you have read through the story and questions below you may panic: "What is the answer, I can't
work it out."

You don't have to, as there are always students in the class who love logical mathematical thinking and will
slice through the puzzle. For them it may well be too simple.

THE SULTAN AND THE CHEAT

A sultan ordered ten goldsmiths to make ten coins each. Each coin was to weigh exactly ten grams of pure
gold. One of the goldsmiths was a bad man. He decided to cheat. He made all his ten coins one gram short.
Now the sultan heard that one of the goldsmiths had cheated. He also heard that this man had made each of
his coins one gram short.

The sultan was a very clever person. He took a certain number of coins from each of the smiths, weighed
them together once only and found their weight to be 540 grams. This was enough for him to find out which
one of the smiths had cheated.

Who was the cheat and how did the sultan find him?

1. How many goldsmiths were there?

2. How many of them were cheats?
3. The cheat, like the others, made ten coins. How many grams short was each coin?
 22

4. Did the sultan find the cheat

a. by looking each man in the eye
b. by weighing coins
c. by asking his mother?
5. How many times did he weigh the coins he took from them?
6. Did he take the coins to weigh from
a. one goldsmith
b. some goldsmiths
c. all of them?
7. Suppose he had taken all ten coins from each smith and put them together on the scales. When he
weighed them how many grams short would they have been?
8. Would he have known that one of the smiths had cheated?
9. Would he have known which smith had cheated?
10. Supposing he took one coin from the first smith, two coins from the second, and three from the third,
how many would he take from the others?
11. How many coins would that be altogether?
12. If nobody had cheated, what should the total weight of these coins have been?
a. 500 grams
b. 550 grams
c. 600 grams?
13. How much did the coins he put on the scale actually weigh?
14. So how many of the coins on the scale were made by the cheat?
15. Who was the cheat?
 23

Lateral Thinking Puzzles, unlike most puzzles, are inexact. In a sense, they are a hybrid between puzzles and
storytelling. In each puzzle, some clues to a scenario are given, but the clues don't tell the full story. Your
job is to fill in the details and complete the story. Obviously, there is usually more than one answer to any
given puzzle, but, in general, only one solution is truly satisfying.

You can try solving these puzzles on your own -- that's certainly a legitimate way to go about this -- but
usually you can have more fun if you involve other people. The way this works is, you look at the answer
(maybe you want to try the puzzle on your own first!), then read just the clues to your friends. Your friends
must determine the answer by asking questions about it, which you may answer only with yes, no, or doesn't
matter. You can adjust the difficulty of the puzzle by varying the initial clues, throwing in red herrings, and
so forth.

Warning: For some reason, these puzzles have a tendency to be rather morbid.

The scenarios given on this page are realistic, if unlikely. The clues can all be taken at face value, although
that's not to say their implications can't be misleading.

#1
A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the
elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator,
and, if there is someone else in the elevator -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to
his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his
apartment.
#2
In the middle of the ocean is a yacht. Several corpses are floating in the water nearby.

#3
A man is lying dead in a room. There is a large pile of gold and jewels on the floor, a
chandelier attached to the ceiling, and a large open window.
#4
A man and his wife raced through the streets. They stopped, and the husband got out of the
car. When he came back, his wife was dead, and there was a stranger in the car.
#5
A body is discovered in a park in Chicago in the middle of summer. It has a fractured skull
and many other broken bones, but the cause of death was hypothermia.
#6
A woman has incontrovertible proof in court that her husband was murdered by her sister. The
judge declares, "This is the strangest case I've ever seen. Though it's a cut-and-dried case, this
woman cannot be punished."
#7
 24

A man walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at
him. The man says, "Thank you," and walks out.
#8
A hunter aimed his gun carefully and fired. Seconds later, he realized his mistake. Minutes
later, he was dead.
#9
A man is returning from Switzerland by train. If he had been in a non-smoking car he would
have died.
#10
A man goes into a restaurant, orders albatross, eats one bite, and kills himself.

#11
A man is found hanging in an otherwise empty locked room with a puddle of water under
his feet.
#12
A man is dead in a puddle of blood and water on the floor of an otherwise empty locked
room.
#13
A man is lying dead, face down in the desert. He's wearing a backpack.

#14
A man is lying dead, face down in the desert. There's a match near his outstretched hand.

#15
A man is driving his car. He turns on the radio, listens for five minutes, turns around, goes
home, and shoots his wife.
#16
A man is driving his car. He turns on the radio, then pulls over to the side of the road and
shoots himself.
#17
The music stops, and a woman dies.

#18
A man is dead in a room with a small pile of wood chips and sawdust in the corner.

#19
There's a flash of light, and a man dies.

#20
A rope breaks. A bell rings. A man dies.

#21
A man is lying drowned in a dead forest.

#22
A woman buys a new pair of shoes, goes to work, and dies.
 25

#23
A man meets a one armed man on a subway, who pulls a gun and shoots him.

#24
A man is lying awake in bed. He makes a phone call, says nothing, and goes to sleep.

#25
A man kills his wife, then goes inside his house and kills himself.

#26
Two men enter a bar. They are served identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.

#27
Joe, wearing a mask and carrying an empty sack, leaves his house. An hour later he returns
with a full sack. He goes into a room and turns out the lights.
#28
Hans and Fritz are German spies during World War II. They try to enter America, posing
as returning tourists. Hans is immediately arrested.
#29
Tim and Greg were talking. Tim said, "The terror of flight." Greg said, "The gloom of the
grave." Greg was arrested.
#30
A man dies of thirst in his own home.

#31
A man gets onto an elevator. When the elevator stops, he knows his wife is dead.

#32
A man is running along a corridor with a piece of paper in his hand. The lights flicker, and
the man drops to his knees and cries out, "Oh no!"
#33
A car without a driver moves; a man dies.

#34
A woman throws something out a window and dies.

#35
An avid birdwatcher sees an unexpected bird. Soon, they're both dead.

#36
There are a carrot, a pile of pebbles, and a pipe lying together in the middle of a field.

#37
An ordinary American citizen, with no passport, visits over thirty foreign countries in one
day. He is welcomed in each country and leaves each one of his own accord.
#38
A man is found dead in an alley lying in a red pool with a stick near his head.

#39
A man lies dead next to a feather.
 26

#40
A man wakes up one night to get some water. He turns off the light and goes back to bed.
The next morning he looks out the window, screams, and kills himself.
#41
She grabbed his ring, pulled on it, and dropped it, thereby saving his life.

#42
A man sitting on a park bench reads a newspaper article headlined "Death at Sea" and
knows a murder has been committed.
#43
A man drives down the highway at 55 miles per hour. He passes three cars going 60 miles
per hour, then gets pulled over by a police officer and is given a ticket.
#44
A man tries the new cologne his wife gave him for his birthday. He goes out to get some
food and is killed.
#45
A man is doing his job when his suit tears. Ten seconds later, he's dead.

#46
A man is doing his job when his suit tears. Three minutes later, he's dead.

#47
A married couple goes to a movie. During the movie the husband strangles the wife. He is
able to get her body home without attracting attention.
#48
Mr. Browning is glad the car ran out of gas.

#49
A man is sitting suspended over two pressurized containers. Suddenly, he dies.

#50
A man leaves a motel room, goes to his car, honks the horn, and returns.

#51
Two dead people sit in their cars on a street.

#52
A man ran into a fire and lived. A man stayed where there was no fire and died.

#53
Three men die. On the pavement are pieces of ice and broken glass.

#54
A man ate some food that was not poisoned, yet nevertheless caused him to die.

#55
One of Johnny's dearest loved ones binds him to a chair, but Johnny doesn't mind.
 27

#56
Two people in a room alone. One looks around and realizes he's going to die.

#57
A woman tells her children to do something, but just one boy obeys. The woman says
something to him, and he stomps away, sits down, and sulks.
#58
A woman tries to drop a man into the ocean -- by his own request -- but when she tries, he
blows back in.
 28

Solution for #1

The man is a dwarf. He can't reach the upper elevator buttons, but he can ask people to push them for him.
He can also push them with his umbrella.

Solution for #2

Alternate Solution #1

A group of people were on an ocean voyage in a yacht. One day, they decided to go swimming -- they put
on their swimsuits and dove off the side. They discovered belatedly that they have forgotten to put a ladder
down the side of the yacht and were unable to climb back in, so they drowned.

Alternate Solution #2

The same situation, but they set out a ladder that was just barely long enough. When they dove into the
water, the boat, without their weight, rose slightly in the water, putting the ladder just out of reach.

Solution for #3

The room is the ballroom of an ocean liner which sank some time ago. The man ran out of air while diving
in the wreck.

Solution for #4

The wife was about to have a baby. They drove to the hospital. The husband left to get a wheelchair, but the
baby was born in the meantime, and the wife didn't survive the birth.

Solution for #5

A poor peasant from somewhere in Europe desperately wants to come to the United States. Lacking money
for airfare, he stows away in the landing gear compartment of a jet. He dies of hypothermia in mid-flight and
falls out when the compartment opens as the plane makes its final approach.

Solution for #6

The sisters are Siamese twins.

Solution for #7
 29

The man has hiccups; the bartender scares them away by pulling a gun.

Solution for #8

Alternate Solution #1

It was winter. He fired the gun near a snowy cliff, which started an avalanche.

Alternate Solution #2

He shot an elephant with a low caliber rifle. Not powerful enough to kill it, the elephant became enraged and
trampled him.

Solution for #9

The man used to be blind -- he's returning from an eye operation which restored his sight. He spent all his
money on the operation, so when the train (which had no internal lighting) goes through a tunnel, he thinks
he's gone blind again and decides to kill himself. But before he could do it, he saw the light of the cigarettes
people were smoking and realized he could still see.

Solution for #10

The man, his wife, and a second man were in a ship that was wrecked on a desert island. The man's wife
died in the wreck. When there was no food left, the second man brought what he said was an albatross but
was really part of the dead wife. Later they were rescued, and at some point, the first man decides to order
albatross at a restaurant. It tastes nothing like what he was told was albatross on the island, which makes him
realize he really ate his wife. Unable to cope with the realization, he kills himself.

Solution for #11

He stood on a block of ice to hang himself.

Solution for #12

He stabbed himself with an icicle.

Solution for #13

He jumped out of an airplane, but his parachute failed to open.

Solution for #14

 30

He was with several others in a hot air balloon, crossing the desert. The balloon was punctured, and they
began to lose altitude. They tossed all their non-essentials overboard and then their clothing and food, but
they were still sinking too fast. They drew matches to see who would jump over the side and save the others.
This man lost.

Solution for #15

The radio program is one of those shows where they call up someone at random and ask them a question.
The announcer states the name and town of the man's wife as the person he would call next. He does so, and
a male voice answers. From this, he gathered his wife was having an affair.

Solution for #16

He's a DJ at a radio station and decides he wants to kill his wife. To establish his alibi, he puts a prerecorded
record on the air, quickly drives home, and kills her. On the way back, he turns on his show and discovers
the record is skipping.

Solution for #17

The woman is a tightrope walker in a circus. Her act consists of walking the rope blindfolded, accompanied
by music, without a net. The conductor is supposed to stop the music when she reaches the end of the rope,
signaling that it's safe to step off onto the platform. That day, the usual conductor was ill. The substitute
stopped the music early.

Solution for #18

The man is a blind dwarf, the shortest one in the circus. Another dwarf, jealous because he's not as short, has
been sawing small pieces off the other's cane every night. When he uses his cane each morning, it appears to
him that he's grown taller. Since his only income is from being a circus midget, he decides to kill himself
when he gets too tall.

Solution for #19

Alternate Solution #1

The man is struck by lightning.

Alternate Solution #2
 31

The man is a lion-tamer, posing for a photo with his lions. The lions react badly to the flash of the camera,
and the man is momentarily blinded by it, so he gets mauled.

Solution for #20

Alternate Solution #1

A blind man enjoys walking near a cliff and uses the sound of a buoy to gauge his distance from the edge.
One day the buoy's anchor rope breaks, allowing the buoy to drift away from the shore. When it rings, the
man thinks he's further away from the edge than he is, walks over it, and falls to his death.

Alternate Solution #2

The man is a bell ringer. One day the rope breaks, and he falls down the shaft and dies.

Solution for #21

He was scuba diving when a firefighting plane landed nearby and filled its tanks with water, sucking him in.
He ran out of air while the plane was in flight; then the water, with him in it, was dumped onto a burning
forest.

Solution for #22

The woman is the assistant to a circus knife-thrower, who stands in front of a target as knives are thrown
around her. The new shoes have higher heels than she normally wears, causing the thrower to misjudge his
aim.

Solution for #23

These two men, along with several others, were shipwrecked on a desert island and had run out of food. The
men agreed that they needed to eat their arms to survive, but that it if one person had to lose his arm to save
them, they should all lose their arms. The men were rescued before the last man's arm was eaten; this man
ran away before he could be caught and forced to give up his arm. However, he bumped into one of the
other survivors in the subway one day, who killed him for not living up to his end of the bargain.

Solution for #24

He is in a hotel and is unable to sleep because the man in the adjacent room is snoring. He calls the snorer up
(at this hotel, like many others, the phone numbers are based on the room number). The snorer wakes up and
 32

answers. The first man hangs up without saying anything and goes to sleep before the snorer starts snoring
again.

Solution for #25

It's the man's fiftieth birthday, and in celebration of this he plans to kill his wife and move to a new life in
another state. His wife takes him out to dinner; afterward, on their front step, he kills her. He opens the door,
dragging her body in with him, and suddenly all the lights turn on and a group of his friends shout,
"Surprise!" Caught red-handed, the man kills himself.

Solution for #26

The drinks contain poisoned ice cubes; one man drinks slowly, giving them time to melt, while the other
drinks quickly and thus doesn't get much of the poison.

Solution for #27

Joe is a kid who goes trick-or-treating for Halloween, returns, and goes to sleep.

Solution for #28

Crossing the border, Hans and Fritz were required to fill out a personal information form, which asked,
among other things, their birthdays. The German date ordering is day/month/year, rather than the American
way, month/day/year. Fritz was born on, say, July 7th, so he wrote down 7/7/15 -- no problem. Hans was
born on, say, July 20th, so he wrote down 20/7/15 instead of the American way, 7/20/15. Since Hans had
claimed to be a returning American, he was found out by the border police.

Solution for #29

Greg is a German spy during World War II. Tim, an American, is suspicious of him, so he plays a word-
association game with him. When Tim says, "The land of the free," Greg says, "The home of the brave."
When Tim says, "The terror of flight," Greg says, "The gloom of the grave." Any U.S. citizen would know
the first verse of the national anthem, but only a spy would have memorized the third.

Solution for #30

His home is a houseboat, and he has run out of water while on an extended cruise.

Solution for #31

 33

He's leaving a hospital after visiting his wife, who's on a life support system. The power goes out, stopping
the elevator and, he guesses, the life support system, too. (He assumes if the emergency backup generator
were working, the elevator wouldn't lose power either.)

Solution for #32

The man is delivering a pardon, and the flicker of the lights indicates that the person to be pardoned has just
been electrocuted.

Solution for #33

The murderer sets the car on a slope above the hot dog stand where the victim works. He wedges an ice
block in the car to keep the brake pedal down, puts the car in neutral, and flies to another city to avoid
suspicion. It's a warm day; when the ice melts, the car rolls down the hill and kills the hot dog man.

Solution for #34

The object she throws is a boomerang. It flies out, loops around, comes back, and hits her in the head.

Solution for #35

He is a passenger in an airplane and sees the bird get sucked into an engine at 20,000 feet. The engine stalls,
and the plane crashes.

Solution for #36

They're the remains of a melted snowman.

Solution for #37

He is a mail courier who delivers packages to the different foreign embassies in the United States. The land
of an embassy belongs to the country of the embassy, not to the United States.

Solution for #38

The man died from eating a poisoned popsicle.

Solution for #39

The man was a sword swallower in a carnival side show. While he was practicing, someone tickled his
throat with the feather, causing him to gag.
 34

Solution for #40

The man is a lighthouse keeper. He wasn't quite awake when he got up in the night -- unwittingly, he had
shut off the light in the lighthouse. During the night, a ship crashes on the rocks. When the man realized
what he had done, he killed himself.

Solution for #41

They were skydiving. He broke his arm as he jumped from the plane by hitting it on the plane door, and he
couldn't reach his ripcord with his other arm. She pulled the ripcord for him.

Solution for #42

The man is a travel agent. He had sold someone two tickets for an ocean voyage, one round-trip and one
one-way. The last name of the man who bought the tickets is the same as the last name of the woman who
"fell" overboard and drowned on the voyage, which is the subject of the article he's reading.

Solution for #43

The man was driving the wrong way on a one way street.

Solution for #44

The man is a beekeeper, and the bees attack en masse because they don't recognize his fragrance.

Solution for #45

The man works at a factory. His clothing got caught on a piece of machinery, dragged him in, and killed
him.

Solution for #46

The man is an astronaut out on a space walk.

Solution for #47

The movie is at a drive-in theater.

Solution for #48

 35

Mr. and Mrs. Browning had just gotten married. Mrs. Browing was subject to fits of depression. They had
their first fight soon after they were married; Mr. Browning stormed out of the house, and Mrs. Browning
went into the garage and started up the car, intending to kill herself by filling the garage with car exhaust.
But the car ran out of gas quickly, and Mr. Browning, returning home to apologize, found Mrs. Browning in
time to summon help and restore her to health.

Solution for #49

He's riding a bicycle or motorcycle, and he crashes and dies.

Solution for #50

It's the middle of the night. The man goes outside to get something from his car, but forgets which room he
was in. His wife is deaf, so he honks the car horn loudly, waking up everyone else in the motel. The other
residents all get up and turn on their lights, and the man returns to the one room that remains dark.

Solution for #51

Because there was a heavy fog, two people driving in opposite directions on the same road both stuck their
heads out of their windows to see the center line better. Their heads hit each other at high speed, killing them
both.

Solution for #52

The two men were working in a small room protected by a carbon dioxide gas fire extinguisher system,
when a fire broke out in an adjoining room. One of the men ran through the fire and escaped with only
minor burns. The other one stayed in the room until the fire extinguishers kicked in and died of oxygen
starvation.

Solution for #53

A large man takes the elevator from the ground floor to the third floor penthouse apartment he shares with
his wife. After greeting her, he sees a man's watch on the table and assumes she's been having an affair.
Thinking her boyfriend has escaped down the stairs, he rushes to the French windows and sees a good-
looking man just leaving the main entrance of the building. Furious, the husband pushes the refrigerator
through the window onto the young man below. The young man is killed by the refrigerator. The husband is
killed from a heart attack caused by overexertion. The wife's boyfriend, who was hiding inside the
refrigerator, is killed from the fall.
 36

Solution for #54

Alternate Solution #1

A man choked to death on a fried chicken leg.

Alternate Solution #2

The man was Adam, and eating the forbidden fruit was punished by God making him mortal...so that he'd
ultimately die.

Solution for #55

Johnny is a kid. The chair is a seat in a car. One of Johnny's parents put his seatbelt on for him.

Solution for #56

The two people are Siamese twins. One wakes up, notices that the other one is dead, and realizes he will die
soon, too.

Solution for #57

The woman is playing a game of "Simon Says" with her children.

Solution for #58

The man has been cremated. The woman is his wife. Before his death, he requested that his ashes be
scattered on the ocean. But it's a windy day, and his ashes blow back on the boat.
 37

These word problems have legitimate answers, but where's the fun in that?

#1
Suppose you are on an elevator on the 16th floor of a building, when the cable breaks. As you
plummet toward the ground, you recall that you once heard that by jumping up fast at the
instant of impact, you can escape death. You also recall that the floors are twelve feet apart
and that the acceleration of a falling object is 32 feet per second squared. When should you
jump?
#2
A dog can run fifty miles in a day. How far could he run into a 120 square mile forest in two
days?
#3
A light year is 5.9x10^12 miles and Alpha Centuri is 2.5x10^14 miles away. If your friend
stood on the surface of Alpha Centuri and waved, how long would it be until you could see it
from the earth?
#4
Buildings A and B are adjacent buildings. The floors in the buildings are twelve feet apart.
Building B is 16 stories high. If Gumball the Clown jumped out of the 20th story window of
Building A, how far would he fall before hitting the roof of Building B?
#5
If you roll snake eyes eight times in a row with the same pair of dice, what is the chance of
rolling snake eyes on your ninth roll?
#6
The human body holds nine quarts of blood. Suppose you were alone in the desert and
accidently cut a major artery. If you bleed at one cup a minute, how long will it take you to
bleed to death?
#7
What's the largest number of coins you can have without having even change for a dollar?

#8
If a boy and a half could eat a hot dog and a half in a minute and a half, how many hot dogs
could six boys eat in six minutes?
 38

Solution for #1

You would impact between the 2nd and 3rd second after the cable broke, so you would want to jump 2
seconds after the break. However, considering the calculations involved, you would probably end up as a
heap of screaming bloody mess at the bottom of the elevator shaft before you figured the answer out.
Besides, there's no telling if jumping really works.

Solution for #2

About half way. After that, he starts running out of the woods.

Solution for #3

From now until hell freezes over. No telescope yet invented has that kind of magnification. Besides, Alpha
Centuri is a star and your friend couldn't get within miles of it without being vaporized.

Solution for #4

Far enough.

Solution for #5

Pretty good! The dice are obviously loaded.

Solution for #6

Apply a tourniquet, and you won't.

Solution for #7

As many as you can carry, if they aren't in dollar-based currencies.

Solution for #8

Who cares? I want to see how that half a boy can eat anything.
39