Facebook can be a wonderful thing. You can snoop on old friends you haven’t seen in years, check a few albums from someone’s beach holiday and, best of all, there is no need to remember anyone’s birthdays any more.

But you know what’s worse than having to remember someone’s birthday? Having to figure it out as part of a complicated maths problem. Kenneth Kong, a television host in Singapore, posted a maths problem to his Facebook page and it has found its way around the world. The New York Times reports:

Originally, Mr. Kong said this was a problem inflicted on fifth-graders, leading to hand-wringing that Singapore children were way better at math (sic) than everyone else in the world and worries that Singapore children were being mentally abused with convoluted logic at a young age.

It turned out the problem actually came from a math olympiad test for math-savvy high school-age students.

So how would you stack up against some ‘math-savvy high school-age students’ then? Here’s the problem below:

First off let’s just say what we are all thinking. No, I’m not referring to the stereotype that Asians are better at maths than the rest of us, I would never do such a thing. I’m talking more about the fact that Cheryl sounds like a real twat, and she won’t be getting a ‘happy birthday’ message from me on Facebook.

Now you want to know the answer? You can get a lengthy explanation HERE. The rest of us will just get on with our lives then, shall we?

 [source:newyorktimes]