Father stumped by simple maths problem meant for his 10-year-old son - so can YOU solve it?
A father was left gobsmacked by a 5th grade maths problem given to his son as he turned to the Internet for help solving the deceptively complicated question.
Writing on Reddit, the parent - from the US - noted he 'must be missing something in how it's worded' alongside a picture of the equation that was meant for a 10-year-old.
However, social media users were also left scratching their heads, with some saying there must be 'a typo or misprint' that rendered the problem unsolvable.
According to the photo posted on Reddit, it states: 'Kayla has 18 bottles of bubbles. She wants to give two bottles to each of her six friends. How many bottles will she have left over?
'Which expression solves the problem? A) (18 divide 2) divide 6, B) (18 divide 2) + 6, C) (18 x 2) - 6, or D) (18 x 2) + 6.'
The man's caption read: '[5th Grade Math] Curious how to solve this math question my son has. This particular question was in my son's math homework from the other day.
'They reviewed the answers in class today and apparently the answer was A. Curious how they came to this answer?
'None of the options seemed right as I was expecting it to be 18 - (6 × 2). Where two bottles are handed out to each friend. Six friends total, meaning 12 bottles are given out, so six bottles are left over.
'I must be missing something in how it's worded but I can't for the life of me figure it out.'
While some people rushed to the comments section to try and work out the answer, most felt the question itself was inaccurate.
One person said: 'Your answer seems to be correct, none of those options are correct..'
Another added: 'I think it's more likely a typo or misprint. Like if they swapped the subtraction and multiplication sign and moved the parentheses on answer choice C, then: (18 x 2) - 6 could become 18 - (2 x 6)'
Someone else agreed: 'May be a misprint, but apparently reviewed by the teacher, who confirmed A.... Awful.'
A fourth added: 'You're correct, the teacher is wrong. If you simplify A, you get 1.5 which doesn't make any sense in the context of the problem.'
Another simply said: 'Seems that A is wrong to me too...'
Others tried to understand where the teacher got answer A from and they were just as stumped as the father.
One person said: 'Really twisting my brain here to make sense of A being correct, but here goes: if you divide 18 bottles by 2 you get 9 bottles in two separate piles.
'Now give one bottle from each pile to all 6 friends. The result would be 3 bottles leftover in two separate piles, or 6 leftover bottles total. Gymnastics.'
Another said: 'A, if they are supposed to use euclidean divisions (18/2 = she has 9 batches of 2, 9/6 => 1 and remainder is 3)'
Someone else wrote: 'Using bad logic, this is the only way I can get any of the answer choices (and it is A) - I'm not saying it's correct, only wanted to explain their (wrong) logic:
'She's splitting the 18 bottles into sets of 2, that's 18 / 2. Then, she's splitting those sets of 2 among her 6 friends.
'That's why you divide by 6 next. That leaves you with A. But as everyone here has said, you and your son are correct. The worksheet is wrong.'
Later the father came back with an update after speaking to his son's 5th grade teacher.
He wrote: 'Thanks everyone! It does seem the worksheet is indeed wrong. I'll reach out to the teacher and let them know. Appreciate the feedback!
'EDIT: I did talk with the teacher and they went over it in class together. The teacher mentioned none of the answers were right and what my son came up with was correct.'
It comes after a mother was left baffled by a very 'obscure' question on her six-year-old's maths homework.
The confused parent dubbed herself the 'worst homework helper ever' after she could not solve her child's query as she couldn't work out what the vague question was even asking.
The activity states Jake has nine lines and two dots before asking the student to 'show one exchange he could make'.
Turning to the internet, the confused mum asked Reddit for help and online sleuths uncovered the true answer.
'I'm not sure what this question is even asking. He says the lines are worth 10 and the dots are worth one,' she explained.
'So this adds up to 92, but what is he supposed to do with that information?
'Are they asking you to trade one line for 10 blocks or something?'
The answer was not obvious to many who were just as perplexed as the mother.
'I feel like these questions are less about maths and more about getting your kid to talk about what they do in class,' one user replied.
'Good question. This looks just like the stuff my first-grader brings home too. Some of these questions are so obscure!' another wrote.
But others were quick to crack the code, explaining the question is most likely asking to use a different amount of lines and dots to make 92.
'Your son is right about the symbols.
'They show he has 92 (nine tens sticks and two ones). I'm not sure what they mean by making an exchange though, and I am an elementary school teacher (4th grade),' someone answered.
'I would guess that they mean to show 92 by having eight lines of ten and 12 ones or something like that.'
'My guess is yes, they are looking for you to draw an extra ten dots and one less line. So it would be 8 lines and 12 dots,' another agreed.
'When I was in school we had little plastic squares and lines for learning units. They probably represent the same thing, a third added.
'I thought so. However, unless there is something in the problem demonstrating that a line is a tens rod, it's just not very intuitive to teach or learn,' another pointed out.
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