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12 Challenging Brain Teasers For Adults With Answers

brain teasers for adults

When it comes to keeping your brain sharp, you need to exercise it daily. Yes, just like a muscle, your brain needs to work and be engaged often.

Whether you like funny brain teasers, science or math brain teasers, or just good old mix, these following mind teasers will keep you sharp and provide a little entertainment as well.

Brain Teasers for Adults

We’re all children at heart and kids love riddles and jokes. Some of these good brain teasers are kiddie teasers, some of them area really hard brain teasers.

Why as an adult should you learn these? Well, research shows that we stop developing our brains about the age of 25. For girls, it’s a little bit before, for guys, it’s a little bit after. It’s just that girls mature faster than boys.

After that, if we don’t use our brains, if we don’t engage our minds, we lose the ability to learn and think clearly. The pathways to learning start to break down, which means you forget things. If they are reestablished, you permanently forget them.

As we age, it gets harder and harder to create new mental pathways. It’s the reason kids find it so easy to learn a new language, but adults find it so hard. It takes more work to make short term memories into long term memories.

Doing brain teasers and learning new subjects, like a new language, is an important part of keeping your brain healthy. The more connections you form, the better your brain will be.

Brain Exercises for Seniors

For seniors, brain teasers are especially important. With nearly half of all seniors expected to have some form of dementia, keeping your brain sharp may be the difference.

Studies show that the more active a person is, the easier they find being able to age with all their memories intact. Similar studies and observations show that the more books and puzzles a person does, and the less TV they watch, the long they live and the longer they retain all their memories and ability to think clearly.

Without Further Ado: The Brain Teaser Questions!

Brain Teaser #1 - The Rain Man

A man was walking in the rain. He was in the middle of nowhere. He had nothing and nowhere to hide. He came home all wet, but not a single hair on his head was wet. Why is that?

brain teaser about rain man

The Answer

Brain Teaser #2 - The Perfect Kingdom

Once upon a time there was a king. He wanted to build a new kingdom with 10 beautiful castles. He asked his architect to plan the kingdom so all the castles will be connected by 5 straight walls. Each wall must connect 4 castles together. At least one castle must be protected by castle walls. 

His architect suggested the following solution:

hard brain teasers

King was not happy with the solution since none of his castles were then protected by a wall. Can you suggest a better solution?

The  Perfect Answer

Brain Teaser #3 - 3 Matches for 3 Squares

Create 3 equal squares by moving exactly 3 matches.

brain teaser with matches

The Answer

Brain Teaser #4 - Escaping from the Field

You are standing in the middle of a rectangle field that is surrounded by a canal. The width of the canal is the same everywhere. You get two wooden beams. The length of each of the beams is the same as the width of the canal. How you can can get out of the field?

how to escape brain teaser

The Answer

Brain Teaser #5 - Classroom Math 1

14 of the kids in the class are girls. 8 of the kids wear blue shirts. 2 of the kids are neither girls or wear a blue shirt.  If 5 of the kids are girls who wear blue shirts how many kids are in the class?

classroom brain teaser

The Answer

Brain Teaser #6 - Classroom Math 2

The numbers on our fortune wheel must be placed in a way that  the sum of any two numbers that come next to each other is equal to the sum of numbers that are on the opposite side of the wheel.

math brain teaser

Right now that is only true for  the numbers:                                                                  1, 10 -- 5,6


Right now the rule does not apply for any of the other numbers.


Can you fix the fortune wheel?

Solution #1

Solution #2

Brain Teaser #7 - Connect the Dots

Connect the following 16 dots using just 6 straight lines. 

connect the dots brain teaser

Solution #1

Solution #2

Solution #3

Brain Teaser #8 - Ax & Horseshoe 

Break the horseshoe into 6 pieces with only two ax strikes. You can not move the pieces after the strikes.

brain teaser with 2 strikes


Brain Teaser #9 - Without Lifting a Pen

Draw the following shape without lifting a pen and without drawing over other lines:

shape draw brain teaser


Brain Teaser #10 - Fun Math


Add mathematical signs (  +, - ,),( *,/ ) in between all or some of the above digits so the result of the  created mathematical equation will be 100.


Brain Teaser #11 - Bridge of Knifes

You get 3 glasses and 3 knifes. The distance between the glasses is equal to the length of the knifes. All the knifes are the same length. You need to build a bridge between the glasses using only those 3 knifes. How it can be done?

bridge brain teaser


Brain Teaser #12 - Barrel of Water

It seems that a barrel is half full with water. How you can find out exactly whether the amount of water in the barrel takes less, more or equal than a half of barrel's volume. 

barrel of water brain teaser



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{ 11 comments… add one }
  • Carlie April 22, 2016, 10:37 pm

    the sixteen dots with only 6 straight lines another solution put four sticks like a square around the outside and then two diagonal like an x

    • Amelia April 25, 2016, 10:12 am

      Hi Carlie,
      Thank you for your suggestion. I guess you mean something like this :
      readers solution for dots riddle
      Notice that while this solution does connect the dots, it does not do so continuously. So if you take a pen and try to connect the dots (without lifting it) this way you will end up drawing 7 lines (1 on top the other).
      Sorry for not making the rules clear enough.
      Waiting for another solution 🙂 .

  • Rachel February 18, 2017, 1:00 am

    Start at the tan circle (1st column, 2nd row).
    Line 1: draw a line diagonally through the circles until you reach the orange one (3rd column, 4th row).
    Line 2: Draw a line all the way up through the third column.
    Line 3: Draw another diagonal line through the circles, past the blue circle (1st column, 3rd row) until you are next to the orange circle (1st column, 4th row).
    Line 4: Then draw a line to your right, cutting through all the circles in the 4th row.
    Line 5: Draw a line upward, cutting through all the circles in the 4th column.
    Line 6th: Draw a line to your left, cutting through all the circles in the first row.


    • Amelia March 3, 2017, 8:44 am

      Hi Rachel!
      Thank you for posting your solution.
      That is absolutely right!!!
      I visualized it For you:

      Rachel's solution for the dots riddle

  • Me March 29, 2017, 11:23 pm

    Under the rain one, you said that the man was bold. He was bald.

    • Amelia April 11, 2017, 4:23 pm

      Hi Me,
      Thank you for noticing. Just fixed it.

  • Me March 30, 2017, 3:47 am

    I solved the dot thing in 4 lines.

    • Amelia April 11, 2017, 4:26 pm

      Hi Me,
      That is interesting. Please share your solution.

  • Suhail August 29, 2017, 3:42 pm

    I have another solution for teaser #9 – without lifting pen can be as below. I have prepared a diagrammatic solution for the same but unable to share it as an image here.

    • Amelia September 12, 2017, 10:48 pm

      Hi, Suhail!

      Great! I think, as a solution, you can post your image on our Facebook page under this post in comments section. Here is the link https://www.facebook.com/mindhow.

      Thank you!

  • Obadia Israel October 6, 2017, 8:35 pm

    wow!this is perfect,how i racked my brain to answer a question

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