Can You Solve This Viral Egg Riddle?

Some of the most clever riddles have deceptively simple answers. Take the viral egg riddle below as an example. At first glance, the question may seem like a tricky math problem, but the only skill you need to solve this puzzle is common sense.

As Republic World reports, the riddle poses what seems like a straightforward math question. You can read it below:

If I had four eggs and a thief gave me three and my rooster laid five more how many do I have?

Your first instinct may be to add all the numbers in the riddle together. If you do that, you'll get 12 eggs. That answer is wrong, however.

Look at the problem again and read through each line carefully. There's a different way to approach the brainteaser that you may have missed initially.

Give up? The correct answer is three eggs. The trick to this riddle lies in the wording. The first line, "If I had four eggs," is a hypothetical, so you start with zero. In the second part, the thief gives you three eggs. You stick with a total of three because the third line is impossible: Roosters can't lay eggs. Zero, plus three, plus zero equals three for your final answer.

If you're looking for even tougher logic challenges, there is no shortage of riddles to tackle online. Here are some of the trickiest riddles from history.

[h/t Republic World]