If you want to perfect your math skills, this tricky equation is perfect for you.
Exam question for schoolchildren aged 10-11 causes big problems for adults on American forum Reddit.
The complex question sparked thousands of attempts and almost 10,000 comments – with one adult saying he felt “really stupid”.
An anonymous user said it was a “test problem on my brothers 5th grade math exam,” before posting a screenshot of the footage.
It read: “Klein read 30 pages of a book on Monday and 1/8 of the book on Tuesday. He finished the remaining quarter of the book on Wednesday. How many pages are there in the book?
A maths exam question aimed at schoolchildren aged 10 to 11 is causing big problems for adults on the American Reddit forum. (Pictured: image of a difficult algebraic equation)
The question prompted many people to attempt to find the correct answer, while others seemed clearly frustrated.
Meanwhile, some people looked back on their memories and discussed the calculation methods they used to do their math homework at school.
Perhaps what’s even more hilarious is that some users didn’t answer the question, while others didn’t answer it at all.
Those who answered the question correctly explained that the logic was all in “units”, and used a step-by-step breakdown to arrive at your answer.
Most adults unanimously agreed that the correct answer was 48 pages long.
The first comment – liked 7,300 times – details the correct answer: “a book = 30 pages + 1/8 of a book + 1/4 of a book”. One book = 30 pages + 3/8 of a book. One book – 3/8 book = 30 pages. Book 5/8 = 30 pages. One book = 48 pages’.
Agreeing with the response, one person said: “Yeah, exactly. My mental process was that he read the last 1/4 on Wednesday, so he must have read 3/4, which was 6/8 the days before. But he only read 1/8 of it on Tuesday. So he had to read the other 5/8 on Monday.
An anonymous user said it was a “test problem on my brothers 5th grade math exam,” before posting a screenshot of the footage. Most adults unanimously agreed that the correct answer was 48 pages.
“We’re told he read 30 pages on Monday. We know he read 5/8 of the book on Monday. So 30 pages = 5/8 of the book. So how much does an eighth of the book cost? We know that 30 pages is 5/8. 30 pages divided by five makes six pages. So, a six-page unit represents 1/8 of the book. The book is therefore made up of eight units of six pages, which is equivalent to eight multiplied by six = 48 pages.
“Congratulations on showing the units,” one replied. “That’s the clearest answer,” replied another.
Meanwhile, the test question made one person “stupid”: “I feel really stupid right now because I can’t understand at all how you get 5/8 from 30.”
In an updated message, they continued: “Thank you everyone for your responses. I still feel a little stupid, but not as much.
Someone else was left perplexed: “This took me so long to see. For the longest time I thought it was just that he read another 1/4 of them on Wednesday, and I was baffled as to how anyone could get the actual length of the books from that.
One person joked: “Why didn’t Klein just read the remaining 18 pages on Monday?” Klein is lazy.
