The Xmas Puzzles 2025 - now live!

24 Dec 2025: The Xmas Puzzles 2025 released!

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The Quizmaster is delighted to announce that The Xmas Puzzles 2025 have now been released! The PDF of puzzles can be accessed by clicking on the blue button below, and detailed instructions and solving tips can be found on pages 1 and 2. The competition will run till 20:00 GMT on Sunday 18 January 2026. This website will be updated shortly to reflect the 2025 competition. Hope you enjoy grappling with these puzzles over the festive break - and wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

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17 Dec 2025: The Xmas Puzzles 2025 released next week!

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The wait is almost over! The Xmas Puzzles 2025 will be released next week (on 23 or 24 December 2025) and will run until mid-January 2026. We are delighted to announce that this year’s competition is being run in association with Chalkdust mathematics magazine, as detailed on pages 32 and 37 of their Autumn 2025 issue (#22). To read this, click the blue button below and select “Download Issue 22 as a PDF”. Please check back next week for further details — and some fiendish festive puzzles!

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Details of The Xmas Puzzles 2024 appear below:

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29 Jan 2025: Winners announced, and solutions released!

Dr Tim Paulden (RSS Quizmaster) writes...

We were delighted to receive no fewer than 44 entries to the 2024 RSS Christmas Quiz - a record in recent memory! The quality of submissions was so high that in addition to the main donation prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, the other teams / entrants who finished inside the top 12 will also receive a small donation of £15 to their nominated charity or good cause.

The list of this year's main winners appears below, and the solutions PDF (which also contains the complete list of prizewinners, including those in the 'top 12') can be accessed via the purple button below. (If you'd like to open the original PDF of puzzles before seeing the solutions, simply click on one of the orange buttons further down the page.) Please don't hesitate to get in touch with any queries / corrections regarding the solutions!

RSS Christmas Quiz 2024: Our winning teams

 
First place (£150 donation)
Oliver Church and Liam Hughes - Nominated charity: Doctors Without Borders
 
Second place (£120 donation)
Susannah Williams and Benedict Howell - Nominated charity: The Brain Tumour Charity
 
Joint third place (3 × £30 donation)

Andrea Chlebikova and Oscar Gillespie - Nominated charity: Animal Aid
Gerad Carter, Rosie Barron, and Molly Barron - Nominated charity: St Catherine's Hospice
 James Taverner and Mattias Andersson - Nominated charity: Shelter

Click the purple button above to view the solutions PDF for 2024!

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17 Dec 2024: Puzzles now live!

Dr Tim Paulden (RSS Quizmaster) writes...

The twelve brain-bending puzzles below (click on the orange button to open the PDF) have just been published as 'Section B' of the Royal Statistical Society and Significance Magazine's 2024 Christmas Quiz.

This is no ordinary 'quiz' though! Solving these puzzles will require a mix of general knowledge, ingenuity, lateral thinking, and searching skills, and you are encouraged to use the internet (and all other tools and resources at your disposal) to help crack them.

This year, the competitive / prize-winning aspects of the puzzles will be administered by the quizmaster via this website (www.TheXmasPuzzles.com). The top three entries received by the deadline (20:00 GMT on Sunday 5 January 2025) will win a donation of £150 (1st) / £120 (2nd) / £90 (3rd) to a charity or good cause of the team's / solver's choice. The names of all our prize-winners will also be published on this website.

For detailed instructions and solving tips, please see page 2 in the PDF of puzzles, which can be accessed by clicking either of the orange buttons below, or visiting the Royal Statistical Society website (from 17 December onwards) or Significance website (from 18 December onwards).

Hope you enjoy grappling with these challenging puzzles over the festive break - and wishing you a very Merry Christmas!