64 Math Riddles with Answers You Can Count on for a Smile

Math is a favorite at our house. The kids love the math jokes I collected years ago, and it’s time to add to the fun with these math riddles with answers.

Since we’re on the subject of school, check out our riddles about school.

Math Riddles with Answers

Some of these math riddles are silly and some are more serious. All of them are sure to get the kids thinking.

• How do you go from 98 to 720 using just one letter? – Add an “x” between “ninety” and “eight”. Ninety x Eight = 720.
• An apple is 40 cents, a banana is 60 cents, and a grapefruit is 80 cents. How much is a pear? – 40 cents. The price of each fruit is calculated by multiplying the number of vowels by 20 cents.
• How many 9’s are there between 1 and 100? – 20.
• Add me to myself and multiply by 4. Divide me by 8, and you will have me once more. What number am I? – Any number.

In two years, I know, I’ll be twice as old as five years ago, said Tom. How old is Tom? – 12.

• I am four times as old as my daughter. In 20 years, I shall be twice as old as her. How old are we now? – I am 40, and my daughter is 10.
• One is to three as three is to five and five is to four and four is the magic number. What is the pattern? – One has three letters in the word, three has five letters in it, five has four letters, and four has four letters in it (if you try more numbers, they will always come back to the number four: so four is the magic number).
• If a boy blows 18 bubbles, then pops 6, eats 7, then pops 5, and blows 1. How many are left? – 1.
• I am a three digit number. My tens digit is five more than my ones digit. My hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit. What number am I? – Number 194.
• You have 6 eggs. You break 2, cook 2, and eat 2. How many do you have left? – 4. The 2 you break are the ones you cook, which are the ones you eat.

• The head of a whale is six feet long; his tail is as long as his head and half his body, and his body is half of his whole length. How long is the whale? – 48 feet.
• A half is a third of it. What is it? – 1 1/2.
• A merchant can place 8 large boxes or 10 small boxes into a carton for shipping. In one shipment, he sent a total of 96 boxes. If there are more large boxes than small boxes, how many cartons did he ship? – 11 total cartons for 96 boxes.
• Tom was on the way to KLCC Park. He met a guy with 7 wives and each of them came with 7 sacks. All these sacks contain 7 cats and each of these 7 cats had 7 kits. So in total, how many were going to KLCC Park? – 1. Only Tom was going to KLCC Park.
• Two hens can lay two eggs in two minutes. If this is the maximum speed possible, what is the total number of hen needed to get 500 eggs in 500 minutes? – 2 hens.

What is the smallest whole number that is equal to seven times the sum of its digits? – 21.

• He is an odd number, but if you take away an alphabet from him, he becomes Even. Who is he? – Seven When letter ‘s’ is taken out, it becomes ‘even’.
• If seven people meet each other and each shakes hands only once with each of the others, how many handshakes will there have been? – 21 handshakes
• How many sides can you see in a circle? – Two sides—inside and outside.
• A clothing store sells vests at $20, socks at $25, ties at $15, and blouse costs at $30. How much would be the cost of a pair of underwear? – $45, as the price is devised at $5 for each letter required to spell the item.

• Will it be sunny in 48 hours? – No, it won’t be sunny weather because it will also be midnight in 48 hours.
• My friend lives at the reverse of my house number. The difference between our house numbers ends in two. What are the lowest possible numbers of our house numbers? – 19 and 91.
• How many times can you subtract the number 10 from 100? – One time, because when you subtract it is no longer 100.
• Athiv has two kids. If the elder child is a girl, then what is the possibility that his other child is also a girl? – 50 percent
• If a rooster laid 13 eggs and the farmer took eight of them and then another rooster laid 12 eggs and four of them were rotten, how many of the eggs were left? – Roosters don’t lay eggs!

Related Post: Riddles for Teachers

• What can you put between 7 and 8 to get a result bigger than 7, but not quite as high as 8? – A decimal point is the answer.
• When Harry was six years old, his little sister Mary was half his age. How old will Mary be when Harry is forty years old? – She will be thirty-seven years old.
• A duck was given $9, a spider was given $36, and a bee was given $27. Based on this information, how much money would be given to a cat? – $18 ($4.50 per leg)
• A grandmother, two mothers, and two daughters went to a baseball game together and bought one ticket each. How many tickets did they buy in total? – 3 tickets because the grandmother is also a mother and the mother is also a daughter.
• Jess’s pencil was wearing out and is now only three centimeters long. Her friend Stan’s new pencil was eight times that length. How long was Stan’s pencil? Answer: 8 x 3 = 24 cms.

What is the total number of eggs that you can put in this empty basket? – Only one egg!

• What is it that a sphere has three of, a circle has only two of, and a point has none? – Dimensions.
• Tom went to the supermarket and bought ten potatoes. On his way home, he discovered that all but nine potatoes were rotten. How many potatoes were edible? – Nine.
• What occurs twice a week, once a year but never in a day? – The letter E
• There are 100 pairs of dogs in a zoo; a pair of babies are born for each dog. Unfortunately, 23 of the dogs have not survived. How many dogs are left in total? – 977 dogs Explanation: 100 x 2 = 200; 200 + 800 = 1,000; 1,000 – 23 = 977
• If four men can build four tables in four hours, how many can eight men build in eight hours? -16 tables

Related Post: Math Jokes

• Leon works at the aquarium. When he tries to put each turtle in its own tank, he has one turtle too many. But if he puts two turtles per tank, he has one tank too many. How many turtles and how many tanks does Leon have? – He has three tanks and four turtles.
• There is an empty basket that is one foot in diameter. What is the total number of eggs that you can put in this empty basket? – Only one egg!
• My twin lives at the reverse of my house number. The difference between our house numbers ends in two. What are the lowest possible numbers of our house numbers? – The lowest possible numbers for the houses are 19 and 91. The difference is 72.
• What is the smallest whole number that is equal to seven times the sum of its digits? – The answer to this math riddle is 21. 
• How do you go from 98 to 720 using just one letter? – Add an “x” between “ninety” and “eight”. Ninety x Eight = 720.

What is half of two plus two? – Three.

• Sally is 54 years old and her mother is 80, how many years ago was Sally’s mother three times her age? – Forty-one.
• If two hours ago, it was as long after one o’clock in the afternoon as it was before one o’clock in the morning, what time would it be now?- Nine
• In a bicycle race, the man who came two places in front of the last man finished one ahead of the man who came fifth. How many contestants were there? -There were 6 contestants. The man came in 4th place.
• You have 14 brown socks, 14 blue socks and 14 black socks in your sock drawer. How many socks must you remove (without looking to be sure) to have a matched pair? – Four.

If two’s company, and three’s a crowd, what are four and five? – Nine

• Using only addition, add eight 8s to get the number 1,000. -888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000
• If you multiply this number by any other number, the answer will always be the same. What number is this? – Zero
• What 3 numbers give the same result when multiplied and added together? – 1, 2, and 3 (1 + 2 + 3 = 6 and 1 x 2 x 3 = 6).
• A word I know, six letters it contains, remove one letter and 12 remains, what is it? – Dozens.
• If seven people meet each other and each shake hands only once with each of the others. How many handshakes happened?- 21
• How do you divide 10 apples into 11 people? – You make applesauce.
• If there are 15 crows on a fence and the farmer shoots a third of them, how many crows are left? – None. The rest of the crows flew away when they heard the gunshot.

Related Post: Science Riddles

• Eggs are $0.12 a dozen. How many eggs can you get for a dollar? – 100 eggs, at one penny each
• Isabella has a big family of twenty cousins, ten uncles, and ten aunts. Now each cousin has an aunt who is not Isabella’s aunt. Who is that aunt? – The aunt is Isabella’s mother. 
• A man has 9 children. Half of them are boys. How is this possible? – They are all boys.
• A 300 ft. train is travelling 300 ft. per minute must travel through a 300 ft. long tunnel. How long will it take the train to travel through the tunnel? – 2 minutes
• Can you arrange 4 nines to make it equal to 100 with any mathematical operation? – 99+9/9 = 100.

Related Post: Riddles about Time

• The head of a whale is six feet long; his tail is as long as his head and half his body, and his body is half of his whole length. How long is the whale? – 48
• If there are four sheep, two dogs and one herds-men, how many feet are there? – Two, because sheep have hooves, dogs have paws, only people have feet.
• Why are 1999 ten-pound notes worth more than 1993 ten-pound notes? – Because there are more of them
• You have a basket with 20 apples. You have 20 hungry children. Every child should get an apple but one apple should remain in the basket. How do you do that? – You give 19 children one apple each and you give the last one the basket containing the last apple.

Add your favorite math riddle to the comments.