The what question can you never answer yes to riddle looks simple, but its trick depends on the situation created by the question itself. The classic answer catches many people because saying “yes” can make the answer impossible.
Before you reveal the answer, give yourself a moment to solve it. Then use the short hints and explanations below to see why the classic solution works and try 100 more short riddles that use different kinds of logic, wordplay, and misdirection.
The Classic Riddle and Answer 🧩
Riddle 1: What question can you never answer yes to?
Answer: Are you asleep yet?
Explanation: If you are truly asleep, you cannot normally answer the question. The riddle’s trick is that saying “yes” would mean you were awake enough to answer.
Riddle 2: What question can you ask while someone is asleep that cannot normally get a true “yes” from them?
Answer: Are you awake?
Riddle 3: What question becomes tricky the moment you answer it?
Answer: Are you asleep?
Riddle 4: What yes-or-no question is hardest to answer honestly while sleeping?
Answer: Are you awake?
Riddle 5: What question can make its own “yes” answer seem impossible?
Answer: Are you asleep?
Riddle 6: What question might have no “yes” answer while the person is actually sleeping?
Answer: Are you awake?
Riddle 7: What question tests whether someone can answer before they answer?
Answer: Are you asleep?
Riddle 8: What question is tricky because answering “yes” proves you are awake enough to answer?
Answer: Are you asleep?
Riddle 9: What question can catch someone in a logical loop about their current state?
Answer: Are you asleep?
Riddle 10: What simple question can become impossible to answer “yes” under its own conditions?
Answer: Are you asleep?
Short Logic Riddles 🔎
Riddle 11: A room has three lights outside and three switches. You may enter once. How can you identify each switch?
Answer: Turn one on, wait, turn it off, turn another on, then enter. The lit bulb is the second switch, the warm bulb is the first, and the cold unlit bulb is the third.
Riddle 12: Two fathers and two sons catch three fish. Each gets one fish. How?
Answer: They are a grandfather, father, and son.
Riddle 13: You pass the person in second place during a race. What place are you in?
Answer: Second place.
Riddle 14: A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 run away. How many remain?
Answer: 9.
Riddle 15: A doctor gives you three pills and says to take one every half hour. How long until all are taken?
Answer: One hour.
Riddle 16: A boat is full of people, but there is not one single person aboard. How?
Answer: Everyone aboard is married.
Riddle 17: You have one match and enter a dark room with a candle, lamp, and fireplace. What do you light first?
Answer: The match.
Riddle 18: A clock takes six seconds to strike six times. How long does it take to strike twelve times?
Answer: Twelve seconds. Eleven intervals take twice the five intervals needed for six strikes.
Riddle 19: A man walks into a store, pays for something, and leaves without carrying anything. What did he buy?
Answer: A service.
Riddle 20: A box contains three red balls and three blue balls. Without looking, what is the fewest balls you must take to guarantee two of the same color?
Answer: Three.
Clever Wordplay Riddles 🔤
Riddle 21: What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short. Adding “er” makes “shorter.”
Riddle 22: What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters?
Answer: Short. The trick is about the meaning, not its original letter count.
Riddle 23: What begins with E, ends with E, and contains one letter?
Answer: An envelope.
Riddle 24: What word sounds the same when you remove its first letter?
Answer: Air, when the “h” is removed from “hair.”
Riddle 25: What word contains 26 letters?
Answer: Alphabet.
Riddle 26: What has four letters, sometimes has nine letters, but never has five letters?
Answer: The words “what,” “sometimes,” and “never” have four, nine, and five letters.
Riddle 27: What starts with T, ends with T, and has T inside it?
Answer: A teapot.
Riddle 28: What word has three consecutive double letters?
Answer: Bookkeeper.
Riddle 29: What English word keeps the same pronunciation after you remove four of its five letters?
Answer: Queue.
Riddle 30: What word has one letter but begins and ends with the same letter?
Answer: Eye. It sounds like the letter I.
Everyday Object Riddles 🏠
Riddle 31: I have buttons but no shirt. What am I?
Answer: A remote control.
Riddle 32: I hold water but have no mouth. What am I?
Answer: A bottle.
Riddle 33: I have a face and two hands but no arms. What am I?
Answer: A clock.
Riddle 34: I get smaller every time I help you write. What am I?
Answer: A pencil.
Riddle 35: I open doors but have no hands. What am I?
Answer: A key.
Riddle 36: I have many pages but cannot read them. What am I?
Answer: A book.
Riddle 37: I have teeth but cannot bite. What am I?
Answer: A comb.
Riddle 38: I can be cracked without being dropped. What am I?
Answer: A joke.
Riddle 39: I have a neck but no head. What am I?
Answer: A bottle.
Riddle 40: I have a spine but no bones. What am I?
Answer: A book.
What Goes Around the World and Stays in a Corner Riddle
Nature and Animal Riddles 🌿
Riddle 41: I fall from the sky but never climb back up. What am I?
Answer: Rain.
Riddle 42: I have wings but I am not a bird. I sleep upside down. What am I?
Answer: A bat.
Riddle 43: I change colors to hide, but I am not a magician. What am I?
Answer: A chameleon.
Riddle 44: I have eight arms but no hands. What am I?
Answer: An octopus.
Riddle 45: I can run but have no legs. What am I?
Answer: Water.
Riddle 46: I have a shell and move very slowly. What am I?
Answer: A turtle.
Riddle 47: I make honey but never bake. What am I?
Answer: A bee.
Riddle 48: I am tiny, work in a colony, and can lift many times my weight. What am I?
Answer: An ant.
Riddle 49: I shine at night but make no fire. What am I?
Answer: The moon.
Riddle 50: I grow from the ground and can become a tall tree. What am I?
Answer: A seed.
Tricky Yes-or-No Riddles 🤔
Riddle 51: If you answer this question with “no,” are you telling the truth?
Answer: There is no simple answer. Either response creates a contradiction.
Riddle 52: Can you honestly say “yes” to the question, “Are you unable to answer yes?”
Answer: No. Saying yes would contradict the statement.
Riddle 53: If today is tomorrow’s yesterday, what day is today?
Answer: Today. It is always today from the speaker’s perspective.
Riddle 54: Can a person be both older and younger than another person at the same time?
Answer: Yes, if they are older in one comparison and younger in another.
Riddle 55: Is there a question that changes meaning when you answer it?
Answer: Yes. “Are you answering this question?” can change depending on the response.
Riddle 56: If you say “no” to every question, can you still answer a question correctly?
Answer: Yes. Some questions have “no” as the correct answer.
Riddle 57: Can a question have two correct answers?
Answer: Yes, if its wording allows multiple valid answers.
Riddle 58: Can “yes” be the wrong answer even when the statement sounds true?
Answer: Yes. The question’s exact wording can change what “yes” means.
Riddle 59: Can you answer “no” to a question without knowing the answer?
Answer: Yes, if you know the answer must be no.
Riddle 60: Can a question be impossible to answer because it contains missing information?
Answer: Yes.
Lateral Thinking Riddles 💡
Riddle 61: A man shaves several times a day but still has a beard. Who is he?
Answer: A barber.
Riddle 62: A woman walks through heavy rain without an umbrella, yet not one hair gets wet. Why?
Answer: She is bald.
Riddle 63: A man pushes his car to a hotel and suddenly knows he is bankrupt. Why?
Answer: He is playing Monopoly.
Riddle 64: A man enters a building, presses a button, and immediately goes back outside. Why?
Answer: He is testing an alarm or access system.
Riddle 65: A man is found in a field with a broken backpack. What happened?
Answer: He was parachuting, and the parachute failed.
Riddle 66: A woman buys a dozen eggs and gets home with all twelve intact. She gives six away and still has six. How?
Answer: She gives six of the eggs away and keeps the other six.
Riddle 67: A person walks into a room and sees a table with four legs, but the table has only three people around it. Why?
Answer: A table can have four legs while only three people sit around it.
Riddle 68: A man looks at a photograph and says, “Brothers and sisters I have none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.” Who is pictured?
Answer: His son.
Riddle 69: A woman has four daughters, and each daughter has one brother. How many children does she have?
Answer: Five.
Riddle 70: A farmer owns five cows. Each cow gives birth to one calf. How many cows does the farmer have afterward?
Answer: Ten cattle, including the five calves.
Medium Brain Teasers 🧠
Riddle 71: I am thinking of a number. Double me and add 6 to get 20. What am I?
Answer: 7.
Riddle 72: What number comes next: 2, 4, 8, 16, ?
Answer: 32.
Riddle 73: A number is greater than 20 and less than 30. Its digits add to 7. What is it?
Answer: 25.
Riddle 74: You have 10 apples and take away 3. How many do you have?
Answer: 3.
Riddle 75: What comes next: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, ?
Answer: 21. The differences increase by one each time.
Riddle 76: A basket has 6 oranges. You take away 2. How many oranges do you have?
Answer: 2.
Riddle 77: What number becomes larger when turned upside down?
Answer: 6, which can become 9.
Riddle 78: A farmer has chickens and cows. There are 10 heads and 28 legs. How many cows are there?
Answer: 4 cows and 6 chickens.
Riddle 79: What comes next: 5, 10, 20, 40, ?
Answer: 80.
Riddle 80: A clock shows 3:00. What is the angle between its hands?
Answer: 90 degrees.
Harder Logic and Pattern Riddles 🔐
Riddle 81: Three boxes are labeled apples, oranges, and mixed. Every label is wrong. You may take one fruit from one box. Which box should you choose?
Answer: Choose the box labeled “mixed.” Since its label is wrong, it contains only apples or only oranges. One fruit reveals which.
Riddle 82: You have two ropes. Each takes exactly one hour to burn, but they burn unevenly. How can you measure 45 minutes?
Answer: Light both ends of one rope and one end of the other. When the first finishes, light the second end of the remaining rope. It will finish 15 minutes later.
Riddle 83: Four people need to cross a bridge at night with one flashlight. Their times are 1, 2, 7, and 10 minutes. Two cross at once. What is the shortest total time?
Answer: 17 minutes.
Riddle 84: A farmer needs to cross a river with a fox, chicken, and grain. He can carry only one at a time. What goes first?
Answer: The chicken.
Final Challenge Riddles 🏆
Riddle 85: A man says, “Yesterday I was 17, but next year I will be 20.” How can this be?
Answer: He says it on January 1, and his birthday is December 31.
Riddle 86: You have three coins totaling 30 cents. One is not a nickel. What are the coins?
Answer: A quarter, a nickel, and a nickel. One coin is not a nickel, while the other two are.
Riddle 87: A house has four walls, and every wall faces south. A bear walks past. What color is it?
Answer: White. The house is near the North Pole.
Riddle 88: A man is born in 2000 and dies in 2000 at age 80. How?
Answer: 2000 is a room or location number, not necessarily a year.
Riddle 89: A woman has seven children, and half are boys. How can that be if seven cannot be divided equally?
Answer: The wording does not say exactly half. Three or four can be boys, depending on interpretation, but “half” is imprecise for seven.
Riddle 90: A person has two coins totaling 30 cents, and one is not a nickel. What are they?
Answer: A quarter and a nickel. The quarter is the coin that is not a nickel.
Practical Tips for Using These Riddles
For the what question can you never answer yes to riddle, pause before revealing the answer. The trick works best when the listener has enough time to think but not enough information to immediately spot the contradiction.
For the other riddles, try giving the clue first, then offer the answer only after the person has made a genuine attempt. The short format also makes these riddles easy to use as quick brain breaks, family games, conversation starters, or casual puzzle challenges.
Conclusion
The classic answer to the what question can you never answer yes to riddle is “Are you asleep yet?” The trick comes from the tension between being asleep and being able to answer the question. It is a simple riddle, but the underlying idea makes it memorable.
The 100 riddles above go beyond that single trick with logic, wordplay, patterns, lateral thinking, and misdirection. For the best experience, solve each one before checking the answer. The hardest puzzles are often the ones that look obvious at first.
Frequently Asked Questions
What question can you never answer yes to?
The classic answer is “Are you asleep yet?” The trick is that if you are actually asleep, you normally cannot answer “yes.”
What is the answer to the “Are you asleep?” riddle?
The traditional answer is “Are you asleep yet?” It works because the ability to answer suggests that you are awake.
Why can’t you answer yes to “Are you asleep?”
The riddle relies on a logical situation rather than a scientific absolute. If you are genuinely asleep, you normally cannot deliberately answer the question.
Can “Are you dead?” also be an answer?
It can work as an alternate interpretation, because a dead person cannot answer. However, “Are you asleep yet?” is the classic version of the riddle.
Is this a logic riddle or a trick question?
It is best described as a trick or logic riddle. Its solution depends on noticing the relationship between the question and the person’s state.
What is a good hint for this riddle?
Think about a condition in which you cannot normally respond to the question while that condition is true.
How can I make this riddle harder?
Ask it without giving any clues, pause before revealing the answer, and avoid emphasizing words such as “asleep” or “awake.”
Are these riddles suitable for kids?
Many are suitable for older children and families, especially the short object, animal, wordplay, and basic logic riddles. The harder logic puzzles may work better with teens and adults.