Operational Puzzles Interview Questions & Answers:

1. A man woke up one morning to find that one of the wheels of his car had a completely flat tire. Despite this he set off in his car and drove 100 miles to visit a customer. He then drove 100 miles home. He did not repair or inflate the flat tire. How did he manage to make the journey?

The flat tire was on the man's spare wheel which he kept in the car trunk. The four wheels he drove on all had properly inflated tires.

2. A man threw something away. He then paid someone else twenty dollars to try to find it but the search was unsuccessful. Later the man found it easily himself. How?

The man fell overboard from a small boat at the seashore. He could not swim well and got into difficulties so he threw away the expensive and heavy binoculars around his neck. He was rescued. He then offered a swimmer a reward to dive down and recover his binoculars. This effort was unsuccessful. Later, however, when the tide went out he was able to pick them up off the sand.

3. A man was changing a wheel on his car when the four nuts used to hold the wheel in place well into a sewer drain and were lost. He was afraid he ws stuck there, but a passing boy made a very useful suggestion which enabled the man to drive off. What was the boy's idea?

The boy suggested that the man take one wheel nut off each of the oyher three wheels in order to attach fourth wheel. Once he had done this, the man could safely drive to the nearest garage with each wheel firmly attached by three nuts.

4. A manhole is a hole which allows someone to gain access to the sewers or other pipes which are below ground. Our local town council recently decided that all the town's manhole covers should be changed from square to round ones. We are user to the town council making silly decisions, but this time they were absolutely right. why?

A square or rectangular manhole cover can fall down the hole, while a round manhole cover cannot. The square cover will fit down the diagonal of the hole(unless the rim it sits on is very large) but no matter how you turn a circle it never measures less than its diameter. So for safety and practicality all manhole covers should be round.

5. A man lies dead in a field. Next to him is a long piece of cord. How did he die?

Incredible as it may seem, some people enjoy leaping off high buildings or bridges with a length of elastic cord fastened to them. This pastime is known as bungee jumping. The poor man in this situation died when he jumped from a high cane in the field and his bungee cord broke.

6. The famous penny black, the world's first postage stamp, was introduced in England in 1840. The idea of postage stamps was a great success and was taken up worldwide. Yet the penny Black was in use for only one year before it was replaced by the Penny Red. Why?

The postmark used at that time was always black. It was therefore difficult to tell whether a stamp had been frankled or not. This led to people reusing used stamps. On a Penny red the black postmark was clearly visible.

7. A man had a book which was worth $40,000. Why did he deliberately destroy it?

The man actually owned two copies of the valuable book. By destroying one copy he increased the value of the other.

8. A man parked his car outside a bank and rushed in. He held up twenty-five people and ran out with $200. A policeman who saw the whole incident stopped the man. He told him off and then let him go. Why?

When the man parked his car outside the bank he held up twenty-five people who were stuck in traffic behind him. The policeman told him not to park like that again.

9. How do the publishers of dictionaries or atlases protect themselves from pirates who would copy their work?

Publishers normally include a nonexistent word or a non-existent island in a dictionary or atlas, respectively. If it then appears in somebody else's work, they have clear evidence of copying.

10. Ornithologists now agree that there is a very good reason why birds' eggs are generally narrower at one end than the other. What is the reason?

A spherical or oval egg would roll in a straight line. How-ever, an asymmetrical egg, which is narrower at one end than the other, will tend to roll in a circle. (Try it with a normal hen's egg.) if the eggs are on a cliff edge or other precarious place, the tendency to roll around rather than straight is a distinct advantage.