Puzzle 29
How many common five letter words can you make from the following letters, using all the letters in each word?
AELST
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
There are quite a few anagrams, one of which is LEAST.
Answer
Least, slate, stale, steal, tales, teals.
Remember that the question asked for common words.
Puzzle 30
Yesterday I went for a short bicycle ride around the local lakes. As the weather was very hot, I rode in shorter stages than I'd normally ride.
In the first stage, I rode half of the overall distance.
Stage two saw half of the remaining distance plus 35 metres covered.
Stage three covered three-quarters of the remaining distance.
Stage four completed half of the remaining distance plus 75 metres.
Stage five completed the journey with a final burst of 150 metres.
How far did I cycle in total?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
Try working backwards.
Answer
7,340 metres.
Reasoning
Stage 5's clue tells us that 150m was left. So the distance left at the start of Stage 4 must have been:
Dist4 = Dist4 + 75 + 150
—————
2
Which simplifies to give Dist4 = 450m.
Stage 3's clue tells us that 450m was one quarter of the remaining distance, so Dist3 = 1,800m.
Stage 2's clue tells us that the distance at the start of Stage 2 was:
Dist2 = Dist2 + 35 + 1800
—————
2
Which simplifies to give Dist2 = 3,670m.
Stage 1's clue tells us that 3,670m was half the overall distance, which means the entire ride was 7,340m.
Double-Checking
Starting with 7,340m:
Stage 1: cycled 3,670m, leaving 3,670m
Stage 2: cycled 1,870m, leaving 1,800m
Stage 3: cycled 1,350m, leaving 450m
Stage 4: cycled 300m, leaving 150m
Stage 5: cycled 150m, leaving 0m
Puzzle 31
Can you replace both sets of dashes with the same common 3-letter word to make two valid words?
S--- and ---PED
How many answers can you find?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
There are 11 common answers – can you find them all?
Answer
cam – scam + camped
car – scar + carped
hip – ship + hipped
hop – shop + hopped
kip – skip + kipped
lap – slap + lapped
lip – slip + lipped
lop – slop + lopped
nap – snap + napped
nip – snip + nipped
top – stop + topped
Puzzle 32
If I can boil 2 eggs in 10 minutes.
How long will it take me to boil 5 eggs?
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Hint
Be careful with your thinking.
Answer
Exactly the same time!
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