The Ultimate Lateral & Critical Thinking Puzzle Book: Master Your "Thinking-Outside-The-Box" Skills

Test your brain power and your ability to "think outside the box" with this collection of clever conundrums. Perfect for family fun and friendly get-togethers, as well as school settings and management training seminars, these challenging puzzles force you to check assumptions, use deductive reasoning, and uncover creative solutions. Best worked in small groups, lateral thinking puzzles present a seemingly bizarre situation that needs to be explained. Solvers ask a "quizmaster" questions to gather information and arrive at the "right" answer. Clues are provided for those who get stuck. Critical thinking puzzles can be worked individually, and are designed to stretch the way you interpret the world. You'll need to uncover relationships, look for sequences, and make observations. Some require inexpensive, readily available materials such as scissors, toothpicks, and a yardstick. Every puzzle will force you to think in new ways, but just as importantly, they are fun to do!


Think you're up to the challenge? Try these:

Free Lunch
A man in a restaurant used two forks and one knife. He did not pay for his lunch. What was happening?

Clues:
The man ate his lunch with one knife and one fork.
He provided a service.
The restaurant provided an intimate atmosphere in the evenings.

Solution: The man was a piano tuner who had come to tune the piano in the restaurant. He brought his own tuning fork. The restaurateur repaid the service with a free lunch.

Spare Change
Jonathan has a pocket full of coins. Yet he doesn't have the right combination of coins to make change for a nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, or dollar. What is the largest value of coins Jonathan can have in his pocket?

Solution: $1.19. Jonathan has four pennies, four dimes, one quarter, one half dollar. Added together, they amount to $1.19.