A Collection of Quant Riddles With (some) Answers

The quant riddles or logic or lateral puzzles 1-19 appear in the book 'Heard on The
Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews' by Timothy
Falcon Crack PhD available on his website the rest have been accumulated from the
internet and emails that I receive. They are designed to help training for job or
university interviews or just training your brain. The internet is littered with this
kind of thing but the answers can be a little harder to find so I've thought about
all of them and the ones that I know the answer to can be clicked on and have little
at the end. Questions 3 & 5 are probably the easiest and a good place to start.
I've coloured them Red, Amber and Green to indicate Very Hard, Quite Hard and
Not so Hard. So that's it good luck....

1. This problem is actually damn hard, I don't know why I put it first.
You are given a set of scales and 12 marbles. The scales are of the old
balance variety. That is, a small dish hangs from each end of a rod that
is balanced in the middle. The device enables you to conclude either that
the contents of the dishes weigh the same or that the dish that falls lower
has heavier contents than the other.

The 12 marbles appear to be identical. In fact, 11 of them are identical,

and one is of a different weight. Your task is to identify the unusual
marble and discard it. You are allowed to use the scales three times if
you wish, but no more. 

Note that the unusual marble may be heavier or lighter than the others. You are asked to both
identify it and determine whether it is heavy or light. 
2. You are given a set of scales and 90 coins. The scales are of the same type as above. You
must pay $100 every time you use the scales.

The 90 coins appear to be identical. In fact, 89 of them are identical, and one is of a different
weight. Your task is to identify the unusual coin and to discard it while minimizing the maximum
possible cost of weighing (another task might be to minimizing the expected cost of weighing).
What is your algorithm to complete this task? What is the most it can cost to identify the unusual
coin?
3. You are a bug sitting in one corner of a cubic room. You wish to walk (no flying)
to the extreme opposite corner (the one farthest from you). Describe the shortest
path that you can walk.

4. A mythical city contains 100,000 married couples but no children. Each family wishes to
“continue the male line”, but they do not wish to over-populate. So, each family has one baby
per annum until the arrival of the first boy. For example, if (at some future date) a family has five
children, then it must be either that they are all girls, and another child is planned, or that there
are four girls and one boy, and no more children are planned. Assume that children are equally
 likely to be born male or female.

Let p(t) be the percentage of children that are male at the end of year t. How is this percentage
expected to evolve through time? 
5. How many degrees (if any) are there in the angle between the hour and minute
hands of a clock when the time is a quarter past three?

6. There are 100 light bulbs lined up in a row in a long room. Each bulb
has its own switch and is currently switched off. The room has an
entry door and an exit door. There are 100 people lined up outside
the entry door. Each bulb is numbered consecutively from 1 to 100.
So is each person.

Person No. 1 enters the room, switches on every bulb, and exits.
Person No. 2 enters and flips the switch on every second bulb
(turning off bulbs 2, 4, 6, …). Person No. 3 enters and flips the
switch on every third bulb (changing the state on bulbs 3, 6, 9, …). This continues until all 100
people have passed through the room.

What is the final state of bulb No. 64? And how many of the light bulbs are illuminated after the
100th person has passed through the room?  
7. A windowless room contains three identical light fixtures, each containing an identical light bulb.
Each light is connected to one of three switches outside of the room. Each bulb is switched off
at present. You are outside the room, and the door is closed. You have one , and only one,
opportunity to flip any of the external switches. After this, you can go into the room and look at
the lights, but you may not touch the switches again. How can you tell which switch goes to
which light?

8. What is the smallest positive integer that leaves a remainder of 1 when divided by 2, remainder
of 2 when divided by 3, a remainder of 3 when divided by 4, … and a remainder of 9 when
divided by 10?

9. In a certain matriarchal town, the women all believe in an old prophecy that says there will come
a time when a stranger will visit the town and announce whether any of the men folks are
cheating on their wives. The stranger will simply say “yes” or “no”, without announcing the
number of men implicated or their identities. If the stranger arrives and makes his
announcement, the women know that they must follow a particular rule: If on any day following
the stranger’s announcement a woman deduces that her husband is not faithful to her, she must
kick him out into the street at 10 A.M. the next day. This action is immediately observable by
every resident in the town. It is well known that each wife is already observant enough to know
whether any man (except her own husband) is cheating on his wife. However, no woman can
reveal that information to any other. A cheating husband is also assumed to remain silent about
his infidelity.

The time comes, and a stranger arrives. He announces that there are cheating men in the town.
On the morning of the 10th day following the stranger’s arrival, some unfaithful men are kicked
out into the street for the first time. How many of them are there?
10. You and I are to play a competitive game. We shall take it in turns
to call out integers. The first person to call out “50” wins. The rules
are as follows:
a. The player who starts must call out an integer between 1
and 10, inclusive;
b. A new number called out must exceed the most recent
number called by at least one and by no more than 10.

Do you want to go first, and if so, what is your strategy?

11. You are to open a safe without knowing the combination. Beginning with the dial set at zero, the
dial must be turned counter-clockwise to the first combination number, (then clockwise back to
zero), and clockwise to the second combination number, (then counter-clockwise back to zero),
and counter-clockwise again to the third and final number, where upon the door shall
immediately spring open. There are 40 numbers on the dial, including the zero.

Without knowing the combination numbers, what is the maximum number of trials required to
open the safe (one trial equals one attempt to dial a full three-number combination)?
12. Inside of a dark closet are five hats: three blue and two red. Knowing this, three smart men go
into the closet, and each selects a hat in the dark and places it unseen upon his head.

Once outside the closet, no man can see his own hat. The first man looks at the other two,
thinks, and says, “I cannot tell what colour my hat is.” The second man hears this, looks at the
other two, and says, “I cannot tell what colour my hat is either.” The third man is blind. The blind
man says, “Well, I know what colour my hat is.” What colour is his hat? 
13. You are standing at the centre of a circular field of radius R. The field has a low wire fence
around it. Attached to the wire fence (and restricted to running around the perimeter) is a large,
sharp-fanged, hungry dog. You can run at speed v, while the dog can run four times as fast.
What is your running strategy to escape the field?

14. You have 52 playing cards (26 red, 26 black). You draw cards one by one. A red card pays you
a dollar. A black one fines you a dollar. You can stop any time you want. Cards are not returned
to the deck after being drawn. What is the optimal stopping rule in terms of maximizing expected
payoff? Also, what is the expected payoff following this optimal rule?

15. Why is that if p is a prime number bigger than 3, then p 2-1 is always divisible by 24 with no
remainder?

16. You have a chessboard (8×8) plus a big box of dominoes (each 2×1). I use a marker
pen to put an “X” in the squares at coordinates (1, 1) and (8, 8) - a pair of diagonally
opposing corners. Is it possible to cover the remaining 62 squares using the
dominoes without any of them sticking out over the edge of the board and without
any of them overlapping? You cannot let the dominoes stand on their ends.

17. You have a string-like fuse that burns in exactly one minute. The fuse is inhomogeneous, and it
may burn slowly at first, then quickly, then slowly, and so on. You have a match, and no watch.
How do you measure exactly 30 seconds?

18. Can the mean of any two consecutive prime numbers ever be prime?
 19. How many consecutive zeros are there at the end of 100! (100 factorial). How would your
solution change if there problem were in base 5? How about in Binary???

20. How can this be true???? Have a look at the picture (click to enlarge.) All the
lines are straight, the shapes that make up the top picture are the same as the
ones in the bottom picture so where does the gap come from????

21. A man is in a rowing boat floating on a lake, in the boat he has a brick. He throws the brick over
the side of the boat so as it lands in the water. The brick sinks quickly. The question is, as a
result of this does the water level in the lake go up or down?

 
22. You have a 3 and a 5 litre water container, each container has no
markings except for that which gives you it's total volume. You also
have a running tap. You must use the containers and the tap in such
away as to exactly measure out 4 litres of water. How is this done?

 
23. I have three envelopes, into one of them I put a £20 note. I lay the envelopes out on a table in
front of me and allow you to pick one envelope. You hold but do not open this envelope. I then
take one of the envelopes from the table, demonstrate to you that it was empty, screw it up and
throw it away. The question is would you rather stick with the envelope you have selected or
exchange it for the one on the table. Why? What would be the expected value to you of the
exchange?

24. You're a farmer. You're going to a market to buy some animals. On the market there are 3 types
of animals for sale. You can buy:

Horses for £10 each, goats for £1 each and ducks, you get 8 of these per bunch and each
bunch costs £1.

The aim is to acquire 100 animals at the cost of £100, what is the combination of horses, goats
and duck that allows you to do this? (You must buy at least one of each.)

25. Adam, Bob, Clair and Dave are out walking: They come to rickety
old wooden bridge. The bridge is weak and only able to carry the
weight of two of them at a time. Because they are in a rush and
the light is fading they must cross in the minimum time possible
and must carry a torch (flashlight,) on each crossing.

They only have one torch and it can't be thrown. Because of their
different fitness levels and some minor injuries they can all cross
at different speeds. Adam can cross in 1 minute, Bob in 2 minutes, Clair in 5 minutes and Dave
in 10 minutes.

Adam, the brains of the group thinks for a moment and declares that the crossing can be
completed in 17 minutes. There is no trick. How is this done????
26. A man has built three houses. Nearby there are gas water and
electric plants. The man wishes to connect all three houses to each
of the gas, water and electricity supplies.

Unfortunately the pipes and cables must not cross each other. How
would you connect connect each of the 3 houses to each of the gas,
water and electricityic supplies???

27. How many squares are there on a chessboard?? (the answer is not 64)

Can you extend your technique to calculate the number of rectangles on a

chessboard.

28. 3 men go into a hotel.

The man behind the desk said the room is $30 so each man paid $10 and went to the room.
A while later the man behind the desk realized the room was only $25 so he sent the bellboy to
the 3 guys' room with $5.
On the way the bellboy couldn't figure out how to split $5 evenly between 3 men, so he gave
each man a $1 and kept the other $2 for himself.
This meant that the 3 men each paid $9 for the room, which is a total of $27 add the $2 that the
bellboy kept = $29. Where is the other dollar?

29. There were two men having a meal. The first man brought 5 loaves of bread, and the second
brought 3. A third man, Ali, came and joined them. They together ate the whole 8 loaves. As he
left Ali gave the men 8 coins as a thank you. The first man said that he would take 5 of the coins
and give his partner 3, but the second man refused and asked for the half of the sum (i.e. 4
coins) as an equal division. The first one refused.
They went to Ali and asked for the fair solution. Ali told the second man, "I think it is better for
you to accept your partner's offer." But the man refused and asked for justice. So Ali said, "then
I say that who offered 5 loaves takes 7 coins, and who offered 3 loaves takes 1 coin."
Can you explain why this was actually fair???

30. A drinks machine offers three selections - Tea, Coffee or Random but the machine has been
wired up wrongly so that each button does not give what it claims. If each drink costs 50p, how
much minimum money do you have to put into the machine to work out which button gives
which selection ? .

31. Consider a standard chess board. What is the diameter of the largest circle that can be drawn
on the board whilst only drawing on the black squares. Hint: This problem is theoretical, so a
line passing from one black square directly into it's diagonal neighbour through the intersecting
corners is considered to have stayed within the black squares, the lines are infinitely thin.

32. Two creepers, one jasmin and other rose, are both climbing up and round a cylindrical tree
trunk. jasmine twists clockwise and rose anticlockwise, both start at the same point on the
ground. before they reach the first branch of the tree the jasmine had made 5 complete twists
and the rose 3 twists. not counting the bottom and the top, how many times do they cross?

33. Assuming i wish to stay dry. Should i walk or run in the rain?