Dad stumped by Year One maths question: 'Am I missing something?'
By Merryn Porter |
Parents around the world often struggle to make sense of homework, and remote learning during the pandemic certainly left plenty of parents scratching their heads.
So spare a thought for this dad who took to Twitter this week for help after he became stumped by his child's Mathematics problem.
US dad Casey Neistat asked his followers: "What am I missing here? This is for my daughter's first-grade test" with an image of four squares, three of which contained circles and a direction to "finish the dot pattern".
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He continued in the comments: "If it's a bouncing ball then why is there two circles in the third box? There is not enough data to absolutely determine that it represents a 'bounce'. Cannot be Fibonacci because that does not account for the circles being in different locations within the boxes".
Then adds: "This is a math question. There needs to be a mathematically absolute answer. So far me and all the replies are coming up with answers that could be applied but not absolute".
He ended with a request to his followers to "Show me your work. I wanna know how you arrived at your answer" and added "I'm so f---ing angry right now".
His post quickly went viral, amassing hundreds of comments.
Many thought the answer was to do with the "Fibonacci sequence", a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two that precede it, which would mean the correct answer was three circles.
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Others thought it was a simple pattern, but could not agree on an answer.
Many of his followers admitted they too were stumped, with one saying: "I'm confused. Am I not as smart as a first-grader?"
While another said simply: "The education system has failed us".
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