A Boy and His Ducks
Logic puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.
A boy, walking home some ducks, was asked how many he had. He replied,
"When in line, there are two ducks ahead of a duck, two ducks behind a duck, and one duck in the middle." How many ducks had he?
HintDucks like to swim. Not a good hint you say? Well I guess you are right about that. OK, pay attention to the commas. Each statement between commas should be considered separately. And do not read it as "at least" two ducks ahead of "at least" one duck, etc. It has all the words it needs already in it.
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Answer
There are three ducks. Two in front of the last duck. Two behind the first duck. And one duck in the middle with a duck in front and behind it.
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Comments
electronjohn   
Nov 18, 2002
| Would this have been harder if I had used cows instead of ducks? 8^) |
bluetwo
Nov 22, 2002
| it would have been harder if the boy collected busts of famous people. then he'd have "two heads ahead of a head; two heads behind a head; and a head in the middle." =D |
the_smart_one
Nov 23, 2002
| That was easy! |
electronjohn
Nov 25, 2002
| Yea, I got it from a book of riddles that is 100years old. Sometimes people think the answer is 5 because they think two in front plus two in back plus one in the middle equals 5. But I guess over the last hundred years we have gotten better at solving riddles! |
jimbo 
Mar 22, 2003
| Good one! Caught me out. Even after I saw the answer I still had to think why it wouldn't also be 5 but then the penny dropped. I like it! |
riazl
Jun 05, 2003
| But why would 5 not be right? |
tec_ocd
Jan 10, 2004
| so one cow in the middle means theres only one cow that isnt on an end? somebody might think middle meant same number of cows on either end. and if a person also thought "a cow" reffered to the same cow all the time then he might think there was five cows and have to write a reaaly long comment to try to make myself not look stupid
-"are you sure you read a book peter? are you sure it wasnt... nothing?" |
chickwithbrains 
Aug 16, 2007
| yay! got it! 
and I LOVE ducks!!! |
kamyl_pretty05
Nov 12, 2011
| I knew it since 7 yrs old |
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