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

A pack of cards has 40 cards. You are blindfolded. Out of 40, 25 cards are facing down while 15 are facing up. You have been asked to divide this pack of cards into two decks - so that each deck contains an equal number of face-up cards. Remember, you are blindfolded.

How will you do it?

Two boys were admitted to a school. When the headmaster asks them about their parents, they tell him that they have same parents (father and mother). On further inquiry, it turns out that they both share the same date for their birthday.

"Are you twins," ask the headmaster.
"No," replies the boys.

Is it possible?

Can you divide numbers from 1 to 9 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) into two groups so that the sum of the numbers of each group is equal?

Note: 9 cannot be turned over to make it 6.

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?

A mules travels the same distance daily.
I noticed that two of his legs travels 10km and the remaining two travels 12km.
Obviously two mules legs cannot be a 2km ahead of the other 2.

The mules is perfectly normal. So how come this be true ?

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

Replace the letters of words with a number so that the below equation holds true

BASE +
BALL
---------
GAMES
----------

Nodes are shown below and you need to connect them based on the following rule: Every node can be connected to the number of nodes inside them, i.e. the first node there is a value of 1 which indicates that the first node can connect to exactly one node only.Can you do it?

A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.

How can the swan successfully escape?