A mother and her friend are talking about how many chidren they have. The friend knows how many daughters the mother has, but doesn't know how many sons she has. The mother says:

"All of my children have the same amount of brothers and the same amount of sisters as the other children."

Now the friend knew how many sons she had. How many sons did the mother have?

(In reply to Solution by Lisa)

What if she had ten sons and no daughters? You can't tell from the problem.

The key is that the friend didn't know how many sons she had before, and she did know how many after the mother made the statement.

Posted by DJ on 2003-10-25 15:27:36