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Calendar 2002 Answers
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Q. In what
year did Christmas and New Year's fall in the same year?
A. They fall in the same year every year! |
| January |
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Q: What is
one thing that all wise men, regardless of their religion or
politics, agree is between heaven and earth?
A. The word "and" |
| February |
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Q. If it takes
six men six days to dig six holes, how long will it take one
man to dig half a hole?
A. There is no such thing as half a hole. A hole is a
hole. |
| March |
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Q. What four-letter
word ends in _ ENY?
A. Deny |
| May |
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Q. What can
you sleep on, sit on and brush your teeth with?
A. A mattress, a chair and a toothbrush. |
| May |
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Q. Carl is
in his rowboat, about to lower a solid bronze statue of David
into his pool. Will the water in the pool rise, fall or stay
the same?
A. The water level will fall. Why? When in the boat the
statue pushes the boat down (thereby raising the water up around
the boat) by an amount of water equal to the weight of the object.
Once on the bottom and not attached to the boat, the statue
will only cause the water to rise by an amount equal to the
volume of the water displaced. Bronze is extremely dense so
the weight of the statue displaces more water than the volume.
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| June |
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Q. A completely
black horse jumped over a tower and landed on a small man, who
then disappears. In what situation could this be possible?
A. It happened in a chess came. A knight jumped over
a rook and landed on a pawn. The pawn, consequently, disappeared
from the game. |
| July |
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Q. Claude,
the French pastry chef, wants to set a new world record for
the longest baguette. One day Claude hung a sign in his shop,
"I think I have a new record! The length of my baguette
is five metres plus half its own length." How long then
was the baguette?
A. Ten metres. The baguette is equal to the sum of five
metres and half the baguette’s length. Imagine the baguette
divided into two equal lengths. If the baguette’s length
is the sum of one of these halves plus five metres, then five
metres must be the other half. Therefore, the total length is
ten metres. |
| August |
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Q. At a Challenge
Consulting Focus Group everybody shakes hands once with every
other person. Altogether there are fifteen handshakes. How many
people attended the Focus Group?
A. Six people attended the Focus Group (a rather poor
attendance). Why? The first person to arrive (person a) has
no one to shake hands with. The second person (person b) has
one person to greet. The third person (person c) has two people
to greet and that makes three handshakes so far. Person d greets
three people (for a total of six handshakes), and person e greets
the first four people (now we have ten handshakes). Person f
is the last one in, and shakes hands with five people already
there. That makes fifteen handshakes altogether. |
| September |
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Q: For an
office birthday party Linda has to slice a large chocolate mud
cake into eight identical pieces with only three straight cuts.
Can it be done? How?
A. Yes. The simplest way is slice in half, then in quarters
and then slice sideways through the middle
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| October |
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Q. Farmer
Brown raises emus and sheep. Among his animals, there are 17
heads and 56 legs in total. How many sheep and how many emus
does Farmer Brown have?
A. Farmer Brown has 11 sheep and 6 emus. Each animal
has 2 hind legs, so 17 heads means 34 hind legs in total; the
remaining 22 legs must be the front legs of the 11 sheep therefore,
11 heads belong to sheep and the remaining 6 heads belong to
emus. |
| November |
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Q. Mary is
planning to mix some home-brew for the office Christmas party.
The recipe calls for exactly two litres of liquid. She can only
find a five-litre and an eight-litre measuring jug. Can she
use these jugs only to measure out the two litres of liquid
she needs?
A. Yes. First she will fill the five-litre jug and pour
it into the eight-litre jug. Then she will fill the five-litre
jug once more and start to fill the eight-litre jug. When the
eight-litre jug is full, clever Mary will have two litres remaining
in the five-litre jug; the amount she needs for her home brew.
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| December |
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