Which number should replace the question mark?

Two guards were on duty outside a barracks. One faced up the road to watch for anyone approaching from the North. The other looked down the road to see if anyone approached from the South. Suddenly one of them said to the other, "Why are you smiling?"

How did he know his companion was smiling?

A number can be multiplied by multiple of nine
i.e 9 18 27 36 45 ...

and the resulting number consist of only one digit.

Can you identify the number ?

In a competitive exam, each correct answer could win you 10 points and each wrong answer could lose you 5 points. You sat in the exam and answered all the 20 questions, which were given in the exam.
When you checked the result, you scored 125 marks on the test.

Can you calculate how many answers given by you were wrong?

Your job is to measure 45 minutes if you have only two cords and matches to light the cords.

1. The two cords are twisted from various materials, so their different segments can burn at different rates.
2. Each cord burns from end to end in exactly one hour.

Describe your way of measuring the 45 minutes.

On a certain day, John celebrated his birthday. Two days later, his older twin brother Jacob celebrated his birthday.

Is this even possible? How can it be?

_ _ _ IE _ _
_ _ _ IE _
_ _ IE _ _
_ _ IE _
_ _ _ _ IE

Like you see, some letters have gone missing from these words that contain the IE pair at some or the other place. The letters that will be used to fill the blanks are given below. Use them and form meaningful words. Can you do that?

A, C, D, F, H, K, L, M, N, N, O, R, R, S, S, S, T, T, Y and Y.

There is a barrel with no lid and some wine in it. 'This barrel of wine is more than half full,' said Curly. 'No it's not,' says Mo. 'It's less than half full.' Without any measuring implements and without removing any wine from the barrel, how can they easily determine who is correct?

A spy was in Canada trying to steal insider information on how to set up new Maple Syrup factories in their country. He was introduced to the operations manager of the biggest factory in Canada. However, the manager was suspicious and decided to test him with a question before he trusted him. So he asked, “What would you be sure to find in the middle of Toronto?” The spy thought fast and came up with an answer for the manager. What was his answer?

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?