Every generation is divided on whether schoolwork has got harder or easier over the years. Boomers, for example, deplore the ubiquity of multiple-choice questions on modern-day tests, while Gen-Z argues that exam pressure has never been more intense. And yet, one maths problem is stumping children and adults from across all ages, even though it was originally intended for six to seven-year-olds. The bewildering question was shared to Twitter by American journalist Helen Rosner, who explained: “My friend just sent me this pic of his 1st grader’s math workbook and neither he nor I have even the tiniest clue what the kid is supposed to do here.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The image features two shopping baskets – one containing three oranges and two bananas, the other empty – accompanied by the following task: “Use math drawings to make the pictures equal. Connect them below with = to make true number sentences.” Rosner’s tweet was instantly met with bewilderment, with one commentator replying: “Are you...supposed to draw the exact same fruits in the second basket????? To make them 'equal'????? “I feel like it's a psychology experiment and not a math problem." Others admitted they tripped at the first hurdle, with a number asking: “What the hell are ‘math drawings’?” Others made valiant attempts at solving the problem: “My brain goes to drawing someone eating all the fruit on the right side, with the peels of two bananas and three oranges scattered around him,” one said, adding: “Is that mathed properly?” “It does look like the answer is eat one orange and then split the rest of the fruit between the two baskets…” suggested a second. Or, simpler still: “Maybe you draw fruit in the empty basket to make them equal?” (This one makes the most sense to our small, Monday morning brains.) “College math instructor here,” chimed in another. “My thought: make sure that both baskets have the same number of fruit. You could do this by adding 3 oranges and 2 bananas to the right, but you could also add FOUR oranges and 2 bananas, and then an extra orange to the left!” That guy lost us at "college math instructor," to be honest. Still, it’s not surprising that the question has boggled so many minds given that the child’s own father – a graduate of Ivy League university MIT – couldn’t figure it out. One Twitter user summed up how all parents were feeling about the whole debacle, writing simply: “All I know is the age at which I’m intimidated by my kid’s math homework has been pushed WAY up.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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