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During the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of riddles and puzzles are going viral on social media while people shelter at home. One of the many new riddles to catch people’s attention is the “Cookie Banana Clock” puzzle. Read on to learn more about the puzzle and the answer.
The cookie banana clock puzzle typically looks like this:
It’s not clear where the puzzle originated from, since it’s now shared everywhere without a source and there’s no watermark on the puzzle itself.
The puzzle reads: “Only 1 out of 7 will get this right!” Then it shows three cookies added together to 30, two bananas and a cookie added together to equal 14, and a banana and two fancy clocks added together to equal 8. Then it asks what the sum is of a clock, two bananas, and a cookie.
Are you ready to learn the answer?
The Answer to the Riddle Is Below
The answer to the puzzle is 10.
Like many similar math riddles, you need to determine the value of each object before calculating. It’s important to note that the cookie in the last question has a different number of chips in it than the cookie in the first question, and the last question has a different number of bananas than the second and third questions. This is part of the trick.
The first equation shows 3 cookies, each with 10 chips, adding to 30. So each chip is added together to make the sum total. A cookie’s sum is the total of chips that you see on it.
We can guess that with this being the case, the second line of 4 bananas + one 10-chip cookie = 14 means that the 4 bananas must equal 4. (14-10 chips = 4.) We can surmise this means that each banana is equal to 1.
Finally, we’re left with 2 bananas + 2 clocks equalling 8. 8-2 bananas = 6. There are 2 clocks, so each clock equals 3.
If you’re just reading through quickly, you might surmise that the last question leads to one clock (3) + two single bananas (2) + a cookie with 7 chips (7) = 12. But you would be wrong. That’s because you need to look more closely. The clocks actually change time from line three to four. So they’re not always worth 3. (And there’s a sign difference you’re overlooking, which we’ll mention in the next section.)
When you look more closely, you’ll notice that in line 3, the clocks are pointing to 3:00. So this means that the clock is worth the value of the time on its face. It would be easy to miss this subtle detail, since the value on the face just happens to match the value of the clocks added together anyway. The value of the face of the clock in line four is 2, not 3. So you actually have one clock (2) + two single bananas (2) + a cookie with 7 chips. But that’s 11, not 10. Hmmm.
But wait, there’s still more!
You see, they also change the sign at the end too that’s super easy to overlook. So it’s 2 (clock at 2:00) + 1 (banana) + 1 (banana) x 7 (chips on a cookie). That is: 7×1 = 7, leaving us with 2+1+7 which equals 10. (You multiply 7×1 first before adding, per BODMAS.)
This is just one of many riddles that are circulating on sites like Facebook and Instagram during the coronavirus pandemic. If you’ve seen the “How Many Ducks Do You See?” riddle and were stumped, check out Heavy’s explanation here. If you ran into the “I Met a Man on London Bridge” riddle and have no idea what the man’s name is, you can find the answer in Heavy’s story here. The answer to the “You Enter a Bedroom” riddle is here, and the answer to the “Can You Open the Lock Using These Clues?” riddle is here.
If you’re looking for the answer to the “Hotel with 100 Rooms” riddle, it’s here. The answer to the “State Without an A” riddle is here. The answer to the “How many letters are in the answer?” riddle is here. And the answer to the “Penny Has 5 Children” riddle is here.
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