I have branches, but no fruit, trunk or leaves. What am I?

I am a word that begins with the letter “i.” If you add the letter “a” to me, I become a new word with a different meaning, but that sounds exactly the same. What word am I?

I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.

He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.

Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?

The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.

What 8 letter word can have a letter taken away and it still makes a word. Take another letter away and it still makes a word. Keep on doing that until you have one letter left. What is the word?

What does man love more than life, hate more than death or mortal strife; That which contented men desire; the poor have, the rich require; the miser spends, the spendthrift saves, and all men carry to their graves?

When a clock is observed, the hour hand is at a minute mark and the minutes hand is six minutes ahead of it.

When the clock is observed again after some time, the hour hand is precisely on a different minute mark and the minute hand is seven minutes ahead of it.

Can you calculate how much time has elapsed between the two observations?

If you drop me I’m sure to crack, but give me a smile and I’ll always smile back. What am I?

It spends most of its day eating white, but when it’s quick enough, it gets to eat fruit and sometimes some blue things. It’s in a dark room, where the walls are blue, it runs from a ghost that roams the halls and haunts it all the time. What is it?

There's one "sport" in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

What is it?

You are in a land where thirty men and two women were dressed in classic black and white dresses.
They begin to fight as soon as any of them move.

Where are you?