Most of us might consider ourselves to be smarter than a ten-year-old kid. But if you are faced with the question you will be facing now- you might get stumped. So, does that make you smarter than them? There has been much discussion and debate regarding the ease of exams or if the education system is improving overall. I’m sure we’ve all heard from a parent or grandparent that ‘back in their day’ exams were much harder, but it might be time for them to experience a little humility.
One exam question that has managed to leave parents stunned comes from Anna Botting, a Sky News presenter who recently shared her daughter’s maths homework, where there was a fiendishly tough sum. The question read:
At the beginning of the day, Hasim counted his money. He gave his brother ⅓ of his money. He spent £12 on a present for his sister. He then counted what he had left and it was half what he had at the beginning of the day. How much did he give his brother?”
School Level Exam Question Stumps Adults
First, the exam question asks one to find the value of one-third of his money. This is the amount that was given to his brother. It is not asking for the exact sum of money that he had in the first place. This question stumped most people because they tried to apply their grown-up brains to the test. Afterward, they later admitted it was “definitely difficult for a 10-year-old.” Others claimed that they couldn’t make any sense at all. Some even got the wrong answer because they hadn’t properly read the question and had actually thought that they were supposed to be working out the sum of the original money.
Others who decided to give a crack at the sum used algebra to solve it. They crunched the numbers to figure out exactly what the question was asking. One individual also suggested that in questions where one didn’t know the number, it was far better just to use a letter and continue with the problem. Like this (considering ‘x’ to be the amount of money Hasim originally had):
The correct answer to the exam question is that Hasim gave his brother £24. The only way to work this out would be to take the one-third and the one-half amounts as the same denomination. This would then give you two-sixths and three-sixths. This implies that the £12 spent by Hasim represented the final sixth of the funds. This also means that he started the day with £72. So, out of this, he gave £24 to his brother, and spent £12 on his sister. At the end of the day, he is left with £36.