A woman lives in a skyscraper thirty-six floors high and is served by several elevators which stop at each floor going up and down. Each morning she leaves her apartment and goes to one of the elevators. Whichever one she takes is three times more likely to be going up than down. Why?

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?

John is on an island and there are three crates of fruit that have washed up in front of him. One crate contains only apples. One crate contains only oranges. The other crate contains both apples and oranges.

Each crate is labelled. One reads 'apples', one reads 'oranges', and one reads 'apples and oranges'. He know that NONE of the crates have been labeled correctly - they are all wrong.

If he can only take out and look at just one of the pieces of fruit from just one of the crates, how can he label all of the crates correctly?

What mathematical symbol can be put between 5 and 9, to get a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9?

A dying old man wants to divide his entire land between his only two sons. Since his only wish is to treat them as equal as both of them have been too good to him, he wants to divide his land equally between them. The problem is that the land is significantly irregular in shape and thus there is no choice of cutting them into two equal halves.

Can you help him divide the land in a manner that both of his sons will be happy?

There are three boxes which are labeled as Rs100, Rs150, and Rs200. One box contains two notes of Rs. 50. The second box contains one note of Rs50 and one note of Rs100 The third box contains two Rs. 100 notes. All boxes are labeled incorrectly.

What is the minimum number of boxes you must check in order to label all boxes correctly?

A journalist was investigating a sacred cult in the jungles of Africa when he was caught by one of the person. He was confined in a cave till the leader arrived. The leader told him that he need to tell him a statement. If he thinks the statement is true, then the journalist head will be chopped off. If he thinks that the statement is false, his head will be smashed with a hammer.

What statement did the journalist make to survive?

You along with your friend are standing in front of two houses. Each of those houses inhabits a family with two children.

Your friend tells you the below two facts:
1) On your left is a family that has a boy who likes accounts but the other child loves science.
2) On the right is a family with a seven-year-old boy and a newborn baby.

You ask him, "Does either of the family have a girl?"

To this, he replies, "I am not quite sure. But can you guess that? If you are right, I will give you $500."

Which family do you think is likely to have a girl?

If,

A + B = C
D - C = A
E - B = C

Based on the above equations, find out the answer for:

D + F = ?

A boy and his father are caught in a traffic accident, and the father dies. Immediately the boy is rushed to a hospital, suffering from injuries. But the attending surgeon at the hospital, upon seeing the boy, says 'I cannot operate. This boy is my son.' How is this situation explained?