I am a seven-letter word but if you remove four of my letters I will have one left. What word am I?

There is a river to cross using a river raft and there are eight people (father, mother, policeman, thief, 2 daughters and 2 sons). No one knows to operate the raft except the adults and also excluding the thief. Only two people can go in the raft at a time. The raft should keep coming back and forth in order to pick and drop the people.
Rules to be followed:
Father: the father cannot stay in the raft or outside the raft without the presence of the mother.
Mother: the mother cannot stay in the raft or outside the rat without the presence of the father.
Thief: the thief is not allowed to stay with any of the family members unless there is a policeman.
Policeman: the policeman can travel with anyone.
2 sons and 2 daughters: they are not allowed to travel in the raft without the presence of an adult. They cannot either travel in the presence of only thieves without the policeman. The sons cannot be with their mothers without their father's supervision. The daughters are not allowed to be there with their fathers without the supervision of their mothers. But the daughters and the sons can be left unsupervised (as long as the other rules are applied).
What is the sequence that the people should follow in order to cross the river through the raft keeping in mind all the rules?
The rules are applicable not only in the raft but also outside the raft.

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?

John drives to his office at 20km/hr. After reaching the office, he realizes that today is a holiday. He went back at an average speed of 30km/hr. Discounting the time spent in the stoppage what was the average speed of his journey?

Here is what you have to do. You have to throw a ball as hard as you can but it must return back to you even if it does not bounce at anything. Also, you have nothing attached to the ball. There is no one on the other end to catch that ball and throw it back at you.

How will you do it?

A hen, a dog, and a cat are stolen. Three suspects are arrested named Robin, Steve, and Tim. The police are sure that all of them stole one of the animals but they don't know who stole which animal.

Sherlock Holmes is appointed to identify and is provided with the following statements from the investigation.

Robin - Tim stole the hen
Steve - Tim stole the dog
Tim - Both Robin and Steve are lying. I neither stole a hen nor a dog.

Sherlock is somehow able to deduce that the man who stole the cat is telling a lie and the man who stole the hen is telling truth.

Can you help him find out who stole which animal?

Suppose you are sitting in an interview and the interviewee asks you an aptitude question.

You have three buckets with a capacity of 4 litres, 8 litres and 10 litres and you have a large tank of water. Now you have to measure 3 litres of water precisely using those buckets. How will you do it?

In the image given, you can find several triangles. Can you count them all?

There is a place where if I stand up straight, I will still be considered sideways.

You have two buckets - one holds exactly 5 gallons and the other 3 gallons. How can you measure 4 gallons of water into the 5 gallon bucket?

(Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that there are no measurement markings of any kind on the buckets.)