“… The question asks: ‘There were some people on a train. 19 people get off the train at the first stop. 17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train. How many people were on the train to begin with?’” …
https://www.yahoo.com/news/math-test-intended-7-olds-152200554.html
Wow, an article that does not bash US parents! 
It is a pretty easy question, but it does involve a few concepts that might not be taught to 7-year-olds. I would expect some 7-year-olds would be able to reason their way to the correct answer, so it might be appropriate as part of a test with a lot of questions. The test might be too hard if it’s a typical question, though.
Stumped parents? Really?
@hunt yeah, but I thought the point was that it stumped parents, which it definitely shouldn’t have!!
It doesn’t surprise me that it stumped adults, because it requires a (tiny) amount of algebra thinking to solve.
In some respects it is a perfect question for young kids who will rightly think well you lost 2 people at the “stop” so “just add them back in to get the number you started with.” Adults are going to start with equations and complicate things unnecessarily.
It would stump most kindergartners and 1st graders in my grandson’s school. Nearly all of the 3rd graders would have the answer in less than thirty seconds.
I am not familiar with what the 7 year olds should be doing, but the parents shouldn’t have found this tough. In my recollection, in the higher math group, my kid had 2 equations with 2 unknowns in 4th grade. I really don’t think that the idea of X or an unknown was introduced in her second grade class. That said, the teacher in 5th grade wasn’t as good as the 4th grade, and we did not see two equations with two unknowns again until algebra, unfortunately
I remember elementary school as the time when we learned the “function machine” and the idea of N as the unknown (although no one used the word unknown at that time.) I can’t say what grade it was, but I seriously doubt it was 2nd grade.
In screening adult employees (HS grads) who had to handle money, I had a simple math test which included fractions and percentages, and many could ot pass. I wondered about the schools that they graduated from.
Many adults don’t do much math in their daily lives. And what they do, they may use a calculator for.
The first article I read linked from FB stated that the answer was 46 while everyone thought the answer should be 65. I don’t think figuring 65 is confusing or was the subject of the controversy. According to the Yahoo article, the confusion was over the 46 answer (63-17), which somehow ignored the 19 that got off.
This isn’t a “test” question like a class test. It is a standardized test question where you can score below, at, or above grade level. So this was likely an “above” grade level question.