Mind Stretcher Puzzle Pack

Three kinds of thinking on one sheet

The pack draws from three libraries and labels every item so you can see which is which: 25 logic teasers, 15 lateral thinking scenarios, and 10 quick maths problems. Fifty in total, shuffled, six to fifty per sheet.

The mixing is the point. A page of one type becomes a procedure — you learn the trick and apply it — and a page that switches type every question does not let you.

What each type asks for

[Logic] items have a definite chain of reasoning. "A man has 7 daughters and each daughter has one brother; how many children?" is solved by noticing the brother is shared. Careful reading, then arithmetic.

[Lateral] items need an assumption dropped rather than a deduction made. These are the hardest to do alone and the best to discuss.

[Maths] items are short and precise. The smallest number divisible by everything from 1 to 10. How many rectangles in a 3×3 grid. What day it is in 100 days' time. Each has one right answer and a satisfying method.

The maths items are worth the sheet on their own

They are the kind of question that looks like a trick and is not.

"If 3 painters paint 3 walls in 3 hours, how many painters paint 9 walls in 9 hours?" catches almost everybody at 9, and the answer is 3. "How many rectangles are in a 3×3 grid of cells?" is 36, and the elegant route — choose two of the four vertical lines and two of the four horizontal — is a better introduction to combinations than any textbook definition. Getting these wrong is the useful part; the method is what you keep.

Who it is for

The stated audience is extension work for a pupil who finishes early, and it does that job. It has two other uses that are at least as good.

A mixed pack is a fair way to find out what someone is actually good at, because the three types are close to independent. A pupil who is quiet in maths lessons and demolishes the lateral items has told you something useful about themselves.

It is also a decent staffroom or dinner-table sheet. None of these is aimed particularly at children.

The controls

Item count from 6 to 50, the answers page on or off, and a seed. A4 or US Letter.

Ten is a session. Fifty is the whole library on one download, which is better used as a supply to draw on than as a single sitting.

Running it

Do not hand out the answers. Half the value of a puzzle like this is the twenty minutes of being stuck, and a sheet with the answers attached converts that into a reading exercise.

Print at 100% on A4 or US Letter.