How puzzles trick you

Two systems, one of them impatient.

The fast answer

Puzzles are designed so an appealing wrong answer arrives first. It is not a failure of intelligence, it is how quick pattern matching works, and the fix is to treat the first answer as a suspect.

If a puzzle felt easy, that is the moment to check it.
Reread the question before answering. The trap is usually one word.

Slowing down on purpose

Write the problem down, name the unknowns, and state what you actually know. Most trick questions collapse the moment they are on paper.