Here is one reason why most students advice not to conduct a post-mortem of the question papers outside the examination hall, it inevitably leads to arguments. But what happens when a picture of a particularly tricky math quiz is posted on social media, it goes viral and more people claim they have the right answers.
Kennethjianwen, a Singaporean TV presenter posted this picture of a mathematics quiz on his Facebook page and before he knew it, the picture snowballed into a trend. His caption to the picture said 'This question causes a debate with my wife .... and its a Sec 3 question. #trickquestion #cherylsbirthday.'
The question was about a girl called Cheryl asking her friends Albert and Bernard to guess her birthday with minimal clues. Cheryl gives them a set of ten dates while revealing that Albert the month and Bernard the day seperately.
Most of the people who tried to answer could not give up as the caption added pressure saying the question was from a Secondary 3 class question paper. The trend also saw worried parents who expressed their concerns regarding the complexity of the question for kids.
It was later learnt that the question was meant for a Math Olympiad contest held on 8 April for Secondary 3 and 4 students by the Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad (SASMO). The participants of the competition were students from more than 30 secondary schools in Singapore. Students were either signed up voluntarily or were selected by their teachers for the competition.
While people were cracking their heads for finding out Cheryl's birthday, here are some hilarious takes on the question.
So when is Cheryl's birthday?
While the comments section had all possible days that Cheryl could have celebrated her birthday, it turned out that July 16 was the right answer. For those who wonder how, another picture was posted by Kennethjianwen that solved the mathematics quiz and arrived at Cheryl's birthday.
