[SamBam]

Replacing "the brick" with "a brick," I always thought the question was fine:

> A brick weighs one pound and half a brick.

I could easily imagine a brick being balanced by a one pound weight and a half brick on the other side, and the answer was easy.

I agree that "half the brick" is trickier wording.

[scotty79]

The problem might have be created when bricks were hand made and there was no assumption that different bricks have same weight. So it was important to stress that it weighs 1 pound and half of itself.