What four weights can be used to balance from 1 to 30 pounds?

An inspection by the superintendent of St. Joseph School was scheduled on the next day. The class teacher Jenifer knew that he would be asking questions from her class and she would have to choose a pupil to answer. To offer a perfect impression over him, the teacher explained certain instructions to the students to maximise the chances of getting correct answer every time.

What did she say to the students?

Use only one mathematical symbol and all numbers (0-9) to get a sum of 99

It's pretty hard to give up.
If you remove a part of it, you will be left with a bit.
Even if you remove another part, the bit still remains.
Remove one more and it still remains.

What is it?

A Japanese ship is sailing in the Indian Ocean. The captain of the ship feels tired and decides to take shower to be rejuvenated. He goes to take the shower after keeping his diamond-studded Rolex watch and gold chain on the table.
When he comes back after 15 minutes, he finds them missing. There are 4 crew members on the ship and he calls them one by one to ask them what they were doing in that duration.

Following are the answers:
1. Crew 'A' who is the cook replies that he was cooking mutton for the crew members.
2. Crew 'B' who is a housekeeper tells that he was sleeping in his room.
3. Crew 'C' who is the engineer says that he was checking on the generator.
4. Crew 'D' who is another housekeeper says that he was correcting the hoisted flag that was put upside down.

It took only a couple of seconds for the captain to find the thief. Can you find the thief too?

I am looking for a word that change both gender and number when i add the letter 'S'.

What Word am I Looking For ?

Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?

Today is John's birthday.
A year ago, John had five candles and he lit all the candles except the one at the last.
Now he is going to light all the candles.

How old is John Today?

(He is not five today.....)

If in a code language, DISTANCE is written as IDTUBECN and DOCUMENT is written as ODDVNTNE, the how will THURSDAY be coded as in the same language?

In particular commonwealth games, a female participant won silver and gold medals for a single event.

How can this be possible?