This simple candy riddle asks:
“You have 5 candies. You eat 2. How many do you have left?”
At first, most people immediately subtract:
5 − 2 = 3
And in the usual sense of the question, that is correct.
You started with 5 candies and ate 2 of them, leaving 3 uneaten candies.
So the answer is:
3 candies.
The wording can make some people overthink it because the candies you ate are technically still “with you” for a short time, but that is not the intended interpretation of this basic counting puzzle.
The straightforward solution is to subtract the two candies that were eaten from the original five.
5 − 2 = 3
Answer: 3 candies.
Did you answer 3 right away, or did the wording make you second-guess yourself?
