THINKING SKILLS

Before we start reading we need to consider thinking skills so we may avoid translating.
It is very common to find people reading and translating, but the idea of this section is to take
you think in English, it does not matter if your vocabulary is not that good, the most important is
to take the chance and start thinking in English instead of translating.

So we this document you have to:

1. Read and see what thinking skills mean
2. Practice at the end some thinking exercises, and then compare your answers with the
ones provided at the end.
3. Then do a practice with puzzles and crosswords

Critical thinking activities engage students' logic, rationality and judgment in problemsolving inquiries. English classes benefit from critical thinking activities because the
activities activate students' prior knowledge, encourage creative thinking and stress the
importance of evidence-based problem solving. Ten-minute critical thinking lessons
serve as engaging and thought-provoking opening assignments that tune students in to
the day's lessons.

PUZZLES IN ENGLISH!
Puzzles of all kinds are very popular in Great Britain. Here are a few you might like to try.
They range from easy to advanced, and are in no particular order.
Number One
Which word in the English language is most often pronounced incorrectly?
Number Two
Using the letter grid below, how many words can you find. Each word must contain the
central H and no letter can be used twice, however, the letters do not have to be connected.
Proper nouns are not allowed, however, plurals are. There is at least one nine letter word.
Advanced: 50+ words. Average: 25 words. All words can be found in the Oxford
Wordpower dictionary. Here are couple to start you off: ache, heart ...

R
E
R

C
H
T

O
S
A

Number Three
What occurs twice in a lifetime, but once in every year. Twice in a week but never in a
day?
Number Four
Many years ago, befor modern educashun in the new millenium, one problem in skools was
baseic speeling and grammer. To conbat this and rays acheivement, teechers were adviced
to start at the very begining, at the yungest age. Once they had managed to breath new life
into leessons, progres came quickly - sucess was then garanteed. How many speeling errors
would modern skolars identify in this paragraph?
Number Five
Mr and Mrs Haines have three daughters and each daughter has two brothers. How many
children do Mr and Mrs Haines have?
Number Six
Think of a number from 1 to 100.
Double this number.
Add 8.
Multiply by 9 (carefully!).
Add the digits together, continue to do this until you have a single digit number. For
example, 542 >> 11 >> 2.
Subtract 5.
Determine which letter of the alphabet your number relates to, A=1, B=2, etc
Think of a country which STARTS with this letter.
Make a note of the LAST letter of this country.
Think of an animal which STARTS with this letter.
Make a note of the LAST letter of this animal.
Think of a colour which STARTS with this letter.

ANSWER
Does that orange eating kangaroo live in Denmark!
Number Seven
There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person of a different
nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar,
and keep a certain pet. Using the clues below can you determine who owns the fish?
The Brit lives in a red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the left of the white house.
The green house owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blend has a neighbour who drinks water.
Number Eight
Which word, if pronounced right, is wrong, but if pronounced wrong is right?
Number Nine
Would you rather a crocodile attack you or an alligator?
Number Ten
Everything Mr Red owns is red, he lives in a red bungalow and his chairs are red, his tables
are red. His ceiling, walls and floor are all red. All of this clothes are red, his shoes are red,
even his carpet, television and phone are red. What colour are his stairs?
Number Eleven
Can you find something which has keys that open no locks, with space but no room, and
allows you to enter but not to go in?
Number Twelve

A farmer buys a horse for $60. He sells it to his neighbour for $70. Then he discovers he
could have made a better deal. He borrows $10 from his wife, and buys the horse back for
$80. He then sells it to another neighbour for $90. How much money did he make?
Number Thirteen
What has a neck, but no head?
Number Fourteen
A more difficult one!
Last Saturday, four neighbour boys found that work goes more quickly when friends help
friends: each of the four had found a job one of the neighbourhood adults, including Mrs.
Wilson, needed done, and the four worked together to make fast work of the chores, one of
which was cleaning a car. Given the following clues, you should be able to decide which
job each found and for whom the work was done.

1. Three of the friends are Alex, the one who found the job mowing the lawn, and the
one who got the job from Mr. Halley.
2. Mr. Trent didn't have the job staining the backyard fence.
3. Alex didn't locate the window-cleaning job.
4. Jason isn't the boy who got the chore from Mr. Trent.
5. Mrs. Diaz didn't have the job cleaning windows; Chad isn't the friend who found the
window-cleaning task.
6. Mr. Halley didn't employ the boys as window cleaners.
7. Chad isn't the boy who found the lawn-mowing job.
8. Mrs. Diaz isn't the adult who gave Alex a job.
9. The chore Ian negotiated wasn't cleaning windows.

Number Fifteen
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?
Number Sixteen

Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The
manager finds out that the room rate is $25 and gives $5 to the bellboy to return. On the
way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to share among three people
so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person.
Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totalling $27.
The bellboy has $2, totalling $29.
Where is the remaining dollar?
Number Seventeen
An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will
inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering
aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the
camels and race as fast as they can to the city.
What does the wise man say?
Number Eighteen
A quick test of intelligence for advanced students.
Don't cheat! Because if you did, the test would be no fun. I promise, there are no tricks to
the test.
Read the sentence below and count the F's in that sentence. Count them ONLY ONCE. Do
not go back and count them again.
See solutions for your score.
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
Number Nineteen
A farmer is standing on one side of the river and with him are a wolf, a goat and a box with
cabbages. In the river there is a small boat. The farmer wants to cross the river with all the
three items who are with him. There are no bridges and in the boat there is only room for
the farmer and one item. But if he leaves the goat with the cabbages alone on one side of
the river the goat will eat the cabbages. If he leaves the wolf and the goat on one side the
wolf will eat the goat. Only the farmer can seperate the wolf from the goat and the goat
from the cabbage.
How can the farmer cross the river with all three items, without one eating the other ?
Number Twenty

During the lunch hour at school, a group of five boys from Miss Jones home room visited a
nearby lunch wagon. one of the five boys took a Mars bar without paying for it. When the
boys were questioned by the school principal, they made the following statements in
respective order:
1. Rex: "Neither Earl nor I did it."
2. Jack: "It was Rex or Peter."
3. Peter: "Both Rex and Jack are lying."
4. Dan: "Peter's statement is not true; one of them is lying and the other is speaking the
truth."
5. Earl: "What Dan said is wrong."
When Miss Jones was consulted, she said, "Three of these boys are always truthful, but
everything that two of them say will be a lie." Assuming that Miss Jones is correct, who
took the Mars bar?
Number Twenty-One
You are lost in a forest. The forest is between two villages. In village A live only liars, they
always lie. In village B people always tell the truth. You want to go to village B. Then you
see a man from village A or B. You can ask him only one question.
Which question will you ask him to know for sure where village B is ?
Number Twenty-Two
The objective in this Word Mine puzzle is to anagram as many 4- and 5-letter words as
possible using the letters in the puzzle master word. A letter may be used to form a new
word only as many times as it appears in the master word. Words should be composed of
common words; words not eligible are those beginning with a capital letter, plurals,
present-tense verbs ending in "S" ("sees," for example), contractions, and hyphenated
words. Our Word Mine master word is:

'Excalibur'
At least 37 four-letter long and 17 five-letter long words can be anagrammed from this one
word!
Number Twenty-Three
What is strange about these sentences?

Was it a car or a cat I saw?

Warsaw was raw.

o
o

No lemons, no melon.
Dennis and Edna sinned.

Number Twenty-Four
These sentences are also a little strange. Why?
Women understand men; few men understand women.
Bores are people that say that people are bores.
Eat to live; never live to eat.
All for one and one for all.
You can cage a swallow, can't you, but you can't swallow a cage, can you?

( do not go to next page until you may have done the whole of the exercises)

Answers
Number One - incorrectly!
Number Two - Send us an e-mail with your list of words. We'll let you know how well you
did!
Number Three- The letter E.
Number Four - Many years ago, before modern education in the new millennium, one
problem in schools was basic spelling and grammar. To combat this and raise
achievement, teachers were advised to start at the very beginning, at the youngest age.
Once they had managed to breathe new life into lessons, progress came quickly - success
was then guaranteed. How many spelling errors would modern scholars identify in this
paragraph?
Number Five - 5; three daughters and two sons.
Number Six Number Seven
This teaser is usually attributed to Einstein, who may or may not have written it. The
German owns the fish and the table below details the full answer:
Nationality: Norweg Dane Brit
German Swede
Colour : Yellow Blue Red
Green White
Beverage : water tea milk
coffee beer
Smokes : Dunhill Blend Pall Mall Prince Blue Master
Pet
: cats horses birds
fish dogs
Number Eight - Wrong.
Number Nine - I would rather the crocodile attack the alligator. Read the sentence again to
see the double meaning.
Number Ten - He doesn't have any stairs because he lives in a bungalow!
Number Eleven - A keyboard.
Number Twelve - The farmer ended up with $90.
The total he had was: $60 + $10 from his wife == $70.

$90 - $70 = $20 dollars profit.

Number Thirteen - a bottle.

Number Fourteen
By clue 1, three of the friends helping friends are Alex, the boy who found the job mowing
the lawn, and the one who had Mr. Halley's task. The boy who found the window cleaning
job isn't Alex (3) and didn't get the work from Mr. Halley (6), so he is the fourth to the
three in clue 1. He isn't Chad (5), nor did Chad find the lawn-mowing job (7); Chad got the
job from Mr. Halley. The job for Mrs. Diaz wasn't cleaning windows (5), and Alex isn't the
boy who got the task helping her (8); Mrs. Diaz had the lawn-mowing job. By clue 9, Ian
found the mowing job and Jason the window cleaning. Jason's work wasn't for Mr. Trent
(4); Alex's was, and Jason found Mrs. Wilson's chore. The fence-staining job was for Mr.
Halley, and Mr. Trent paid to have his car cleaned (2). In summary, the Saturday jobs were

Alex, cleaning car for Mr. Trent

Chad, staining fence for Mr. Halley
Ian, mowing lawn for Mrs. Diaz
Jason, cleaning windows for Mrs. Wilson

Number Fifteen - One, only I was going to St. Ives.

Number Sixteen
Each person paid $9, totalling $27. The manager has $25 and the bellboy $2. The bellboy's
$2 should be added to the manager's $25 or subtracted from the tenants' $27, not added to
the tenants' $27.
Number Seventeen
The wise man tells them to switch camels.
Number Eighteen
There are six F's in the sentence.
A person of average intelligence finds three of them.
If you spotted four, you're above average.
If you got five, you can turn your nose at most anybody.
If you caught six, you are a genius.
There is no catch.
Many people forget the "OF"'s.

The human brain tends to see them as V's and not F's.
Pretty weird, huh?
Number Nineteen
First the farmer takes the goat across the river. He goes back to pick up the wolf. When he
is across he leaves the wolf and takes back the goat. Back on the other side he leaves the
goat and takes the cabbages with him. Then he picks up the goat and all three items are on
the other side.

Number Twenty - Peter took the Mars bar

Number Twenty-One
Ask the man which city he lives in. He will always point to village B.
Number Twenty-Two
Four and five letter words formed from the word EXCALIBUR:
able, acre, axle, bail, bale, bare, bear, beau, bile, blue, blur, burl, care, club, clue, crab, crib,
crux, cube, curb, cure, curl, earl, ibex, lace, lair, lice, lieu, lube, lure, race, rail, real, rice,
rile, rule,
acerb, auric, baler, blare, bluer, brace, cable, clear, cruel, exurb, laxer, libra, relax, relic,
ruble, ulcer.
Number Twenty-Three
They are all palindromes. A palindrome is a word, phrase or number that reads exactly
the same backwards as forwards. The name "palindrome" comes from the Greek
palindromos meaning "running back again".
Number Twenty-Four
They are all word-unit palindomes. Word-unit palindromes relate to whole words, which
form the same sentence when read in reverse as forwards.

( send your teacher a report of your performance)