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Difficulty: Extreme! Srinivasa lives in a house on a short street, with houses on one side. The houses are numbered 1, 2, 3 and so on. He was practicing his addition when he noticed something strange.

Difficulty: Tricky Mabel wanted to play noughts (O) and crosses (X), but she didn’t have anyone to play with. So she just took one go after another. Somehow, Mabel put Xs in 6 of the 9 squares without making a line of 3 Xs. Can you draw the board and work out which squares have […]

Difficulty: Tricky Willow has a staircase with 7 steps. She likes to walk down the staircase in different ways. Sometimes she takes 1 step at a time, and other times she skips a step and goes 2 at a time. If Willow mixes up these 2 types of steps, how many different ways can she […]

Difficulty: Extreme! These 2 brothers sold oranges for a living. On Monday: Josh priced his oranges at 2 for $3. He sold 30 oranges for $45. Zach priced his oranges at 3 for $4. He sold 30 oranges for $40. On Tuesday, they combined their prices, and sold their oranges in groups of (2 + […]

Difficulty: Tricky Jasper had a regular (sides and angles all the same) hexagon with 10-centimetre sides, and 3 regular triangles with 10-centimetre sides. He put the side of a triangle against every second side of the hexagon. How many sides did this final shape have?

Difficulty: Tricky Keira is getting ready for school: She has 3 different shirts – one black, one white and one red. She has 3 different pairs of pants – one black, one white and one red. She has 3 different pairs of shoes – one black, one white and one red.

Difficulty: Tricky Last week I flew from Canberra to Brisbane. The plane took off at 2.00 pm, flew 1,800 kilometres at 900 kilometres per hour, and landed at 3.00pm. On the way home from Brisbane, the plane took off at 8.00 pm. Assuming it flew at the same speed, when did it land in Canberra?

Difficulty: Tricky At the 2022 World Darts Championship, William Borland beat Bradley Brooks with a perfect final leg, scoring precisely 501 points.

Difficulty: Tricky There are 32 soldiers guarding a square castle. The castle has 8 towers – one in each corner of the square, and one in the middle of each side. The soldiers want to make sure all the walls are guarded.

Difficulty: Fun The number 39 bus was packed as it pulled into the interchange. Then 37 people got off, and another 14 got on. As the bus left the interchange, there were 37 people on board. How many people were on the bus as it pulled into the interchange?