The number

You are not asking for corrections to grammar or language, so I'll just say that the farmer has 10 cows. You say that four of them are dead, which is unimportant. He still has the four dead cows in addition to the live ones. You haven't said the farmer has disposed of a single cow, dead or alive.

This is a trick question often used in IQ tests

However, grammatically it should read

The farmer has ten cows. All but 6 of them are dead. How many cows does he have left?

When using numbers in a sentence, the first (set) of numbers should be written out in full, the rest that follow can be written as a number

Maggie StarlingThis is a trick question often used in IQ tests

Do you know what the answer is supposed to be?

Maggie StarlingWhen using numbers in a sentence, the first (set) of numbers should be written out in full, the rest that follow can be written as a number

I have not heard that rule before. The one I know and fo

CliveI would begin with The farmer had 10 cows.

Unless the wording "has" is part of the "trick". Not that it would be a very good trick.

GPY

The answer is in the question

All but 6 are dead mening all except 6 are dead therefore there must be 6 cows left

Maggie StarlingGPYThe answer is in the questionAll but 6 are dead mening all except 6 are dead therefore there must be 6 cows left

I think the question is poorly worded. One is of course looking for a "trick", and it is not obvious that the "trick" is not the one that Cool Breeze explained above.

Absolutely correct!

It would have to be considered why the question was asked (in which context)

If it had been asked as a comprehension of language then Cool Breeze is spot on

I had understood it (without comprehending) that the question was referring to numeracy and assumed the question was asking how many (living) cows were left

I stand corrected

Maggie StarlingI stand corrected

To be honest, I think that your answer is probably the "correct" one. I think that the "trick" is probably that the answer is 6 and not 4. Even so, I think it is wise to make such questions completely watertight to prevent people being clever with "double trick" answers.

The answer would be either six or 10 if the question had been more specific

If there were 10 cows and all except 6 were dead then there would be 6 live cows

However, the statement is how may left and doesn't specify whether dead or alive, in which case the answer would be 10 - 6 alive plus 4 dead

It would have been much clearer if the question actually asked how many dea