Puzzle Pages – answers for May 2025!

Here you’ll find the answers to our Puzzle Pages from the May 2025 issue of Expat Living magazine. If you love quiz questions and puzzles and you’d like to make sure you get them every month, don’t forget to subscribe to Expat Living!

Puzzle Pages, May 2025 answers – Page 1

Q&A

1. What is a baby kangaroo called?
2. Which is bigger by area, Singapore or Hong Kong?
3. What is the pH level of pure water?
4. Who released a 2024 album called “Hit Me Hard and Soft”?
5. Who won more tennis grand slams, Björn Borg or Martina Navratilova?
6. What are the five basic types of taste?
7. HAL9000 is the name of the AI system in which sci-fi film?
8. Someone born on the first of which month would be a Virgo?
9. Which game uses a tie-breaking system known as “Armageddon”?
10. How many zeroes are in ten million? 

Answers:

1. Joey
2. Hong Kong (1115 square kilometres compared to Singapore’s 735 square kilometres)
3. Seven
4. Billie Eilish
5. Martina Navratilova (18 compared to Björn Borg’s 11)
6. Sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami
7. 2001: A Space Odyssey
8. September
9. Chess
10. Seven

SUDOKU

5 6 2  7 8 3  1 9 4
1 8 4  5 2 9  6 7 3
7 3 9  4 1 6  8 2 5

2 1 5  6 3 7  9 4 8
4 7 6  9 5 8  3 1 2
3 9 8  1 4 2  5 6 7

8 2 1  3 6 4  7 5 9
6 4 7  8 9 5  2 3 1
9 5 3  2 7 1  4 8 6

WORDWHEEL

9-letter word: whimsical

others:

alms, calm, clam, claw, hail, laic, lash, lima,
mail, sail, slam, slaw, slim, wail, chili, claim,
clash, iliac, malic, milch, salic, shawl, chimla,
lamish, sialic, silica, simial, ischial, laicism

KENKEN

4 1 2 3 5
1 2 5 4 3
2 5 3 1 4
3 4 1 5 2
5 3 4 2 1

Puzzle Pages, May 2025 answers – Page 2

FIND A WORD

Hidden in the grid this month were 15 “one-trick words” – i.e., words that are used almost solely in one particular way. For the bonus points, here are the 15 phrases incorporating those words!

Answers:

• Honcho – “head honcho”
• Tribulations – “trials and tribulations”
• Aback – “taken aback”
• Shebang – “the whole shebang”
• Betwixt – “betwixt and between”
• Halcyon – “halcyon days”
• Pyrrhic – “Pyrrhic victory”
• Kibosh (or kybosh) – “put the kibosh on [something]”
• Bated – “bated breath”
• Applecart – “upset the applecart”
• Extenuating – “extenuating circumstances”
• Wishful – “wishful thinking”
• Bygones – “let bygones be bygones”
• Whippersnapper – “young whippersnapper”
• Loggerheads – “to be at loggerheads”

Others examples: 

• Bended – “on bended knee”
• Afield – “further afield”/ “farther afield”
• Immemorial – “time immemorial”
• Madding – “far from the madding crowd”
• Squib – “damp squib”

NAME THAT STATE

Unscramble the anagrams to find the names of American states. (E.g., “taxes” = “Texas”)

Answers:

corn inhalator – North Carolina
gym wino – Wyoming
nominates – Minnesota
a hen whimpers – New Hampshire
teen sense – Tennessee
anime – Maine
African oil – California
bra snake – Nebraska
hating snow – Washington
lewd area – Delaware

MORE ACRONYMS

Like last month, match the three-letter acronym with its meaning

Answers:

MMA – Full contact fighting in a cage
MYR – Currency of our northern neighbour
MVP – Best on ground
MTV – “I want my…”
MSG – Flavour enhancer
M&S – Founded in 1884 in Leeds
MGM – Iconic roaring lion
MTR – Taking the train in HK
MIT – 105 Novel laureates have come from here
MCA – One of the Beastie Boys

DECIPHER THE DISH

What iconic dishes are being described below? (E.g., “small cubes of toasted bread” = “croutons”)

Answers:

1. Flambeed pancakes in an orange sauce – Crêpes Suzette
2. Coconut rice with ikan bilis, sambal and cucumber – Nasi Lemak
3. Salted bread or biscuit twisted into a knot – Pretzel
4. Beef strips in a sauce of paprika, cream and mushrooms – Stroganoff
5. Salad of tomato, basil and mozzarella – Caprese
6. Blended chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic – Hummus
7. Deep-fried triangular pastry with curried ingredients – Samosa
8. Rye bread sandwich with corned beef and Swiss cheese – Reuben
9. Cucumber with yogurt and garlic – Tzatziki
10. Spicy fish and shellfish soup from Provence – Bouillabaisse

THE RIDDLER

What words are being referred to here?

1. The first two letters signify a man, the first three letters signify a woman, the four letters signify a great, and the whole word signifies a great woman.
2. The person who makes it has no need for it. The person who buys it doesn’t use it. The person uses it doesn’t know they are. What is it?
3. When you stop and look, you can always see me. If you try to touch, you cannot feel me. I cannot move, but as you near me, I will move away from you

Answers:

1. heroine
2. coffin
3. horizon

Liked our May puzzle pages? Read on for more fun puzzles and trivia:

20 quirky facts about Singapore
The great Travel Guide quiz