Enhance Your Thinking Again

Published one of these last week, so here's another.  Let me know how you do.

1. What words, when you add additional letters, become smaller? List at least 4 words

2. It has been said that Moses took a certain amount of animals of each species aboard the Ark with him.  How many did he take?

3. What has a foot on each end and one in the middle?  Come up with at least 2 answers.

4.  4, 7, 11, 16, ___, 29

5.  You have two pencils, a good one and a cheap one.  The good one costs $1.00 more than the cheap one.  You spent $1.10 for both.  How much did the cheap one cost?

6.  What is mightier than God and more evil than the Devil?  The poor have it, the rich lack it, and those who eat it perish?

7. Ten full crates of walnuts weigh 410 pounds, each empty crate weighs 10 pounds.  How much do the walnuts themselves weigh totally?

8.  A hobo can make one whole cigar from every 5 cigar butts that he finds and then he smokes it.  How many cigars can be made if h finds 25 cigar butts?

Answers are below the photo.  Try to answer before looking.

1.  Millimeter, centimeter, smaller, smallest, littlest  are some possibles

2. Moses didn't go on the Ark.

3. yardstick, easel, three-legged stool, church pew are some possibles

4. 22

5. cheap one cost $.05  good one $1.05

6. Nothing

7. 310 pounds

8. 6 cigars

Need any explained?

Enhancing Your Thinking Answers

On Thursday I posted some Critical Thinking questions.  If you didn't see that post scroll down to find it and try your hand at answering the questions.

As promised here are the answers:

1. 33 boxes

2.  yes

3.  Possible answers: a bakers dozen, one unlucky number, one country with 13 original states, 1 suit of cards

4. the match

5. all 12 months

6. the bear is white

7. 8 days

8.  40 pennies, 8 nickles and 2 dimes

     45 pennies, 1 quarter, 2 dimes, 2 nickles

How did you do?  Do you need any of these explained?

Enhancing Your Thinking

Here at Vantage House, our continuing care retirement community, there are lots of activities to keep our minds sharp.  We have a wide variety of regular exercise classes.  I attend muscle toning three days a week and book camp two days a week.  Dan goes to the latter and agrees it is quite a workout.

There are speakers that come on various topics to keep us informed and aware.  This week it was Mel Goodman, a monthly regular, who talks about the political scene from his perspective as a retiree from CIA, State and Defense Departments.  Next week there's an expert on the court system to talk about the Supreme Court.  There are Brainy movies, Great Decision discussions, twice weekly trivia gatherings, as well as a wide assortment of musical performers.  More events going on then we can even get to.

Once a week Dan and I attend "Enhance Your Thinking" led by a retired community college professor who lives here.  I thought I would share with you some of the critical thinking questions we work on individually and then compare answers and thinking with a partner.  We then discuss all the answers as a group.  It's a great exercise.

I will give the answers in another post but if you want hints, put that in your comment.

1.  There are 3 separate, equal-sized boxes, and inside each box there are 2 separate small boxes.  Inside each of the small boxes there are 4 even smaller boxes.  How many boxes are there altogether?

2.  Do they have a 4th of July in England?

3.  When does 8 plus 5 equal 1?  Come up with several answers.

4.  If you had only one match and entered a room in which there was a kerosene lamp, and oil heater, and a wood burning stove, what would you light first? Why?

5.  Seven months have 31 days.  How many months have 28 days?

6.  A man builds a house with 4 sides to it and it is rectangular in shape.  Each side has a southern exposure.  A big bear comes wandering by.  What color is the bear?

7.  A snail is climbing out of a well.  The well is 10 feet deep.  Every day the snail climbs up three feet and every night he slips back two.  How many days will it take him to get out of the well?

8.  Explain how you can change a dollar bill into exactly 50 coins which when added together will equal a dollar.  There may be more than answer.

Good luck!  Let me know how you do.