Viral cow maths puzzle has left people’s brains frazzled

This left some people stumped

The cow maths puzzle starts by saying: "I bought a cow for $800. I sold it for $1,000.

"I bought it again for $1,100. I sold it again for $1,300. How much did I earn?"

The riddle has left people scratching their heads but if you break it down into chunks it becomes easier.

someone posted this on threads and almost every answer is wrong i'm going to lose my mind pic.twitter.com/FtOhEeXTwR

— soup girl (@jasminericegirl) February 19, 2024

You purchase the cow for $800 then sell it for $1,000 so at that stage your net profit is $200.

You then buy it back again for $1,100 meaning your net profit is -$900.

If you then re-purchase the cow for $1,300, your total profit is $400.

People were fighting over the answer on X with guesses ranging from -$400 up to $1,500, with the most popular answer $300.

One person wrote: "It's $300 and I'm a teacher so I'm right," well, do we have news for that school teacher!

Other popular riddles that have left people stumped like this in the past include the 'woman in a boat' question.

The viral TikTok riddle reads: "There's a woman in a boat. On a lake wearing a coat. If you want to know her name, it's on the riddle I just wrote. What is the woman's name."

The woman’s name is 'There'. The riddle says “There is a woman” which is just a play on words suggesting that her name is “There”. If you swapped the name out for a basic one, like Sarah, it would read: “Sarah is a woman in a boat.”

You may have, like many, mistakenly thought her name was 'What' as there's no question mark at the end of that sentence but the line above that says that they have already written her name in the riddle, so it would appear the lack of a question mark is designed to throw you off the scent.