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Tricky maths question for eight-year-olds has parents stumped… so do YOU know the answer?

A MATHS problem meant for an eight-year-old child has stumped the internet, with adults struggling to answer it.

The question, part of homework for a child in Year 3, was posted to the Reddit community Mildly Infuriating with the parent asking for help on the confusing question.

Parents have been left stumped by this tricky maths question
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Parents have been left stumped by this tricky maths questionCredit: Reddit

“Jared found these baby birds and needs to care for them," the problem said, alongside a grainy black and white cartoon of birds in a nest.

“Each bird eats about four worms a day. In order to feed them all each day, about how many worms will Jared need to find?”

The reader is then presented with four possible answers, 6, 10, 4 or 20.

Reddit users were left scratching their head with one joking, “I'd circle 'OJ' for 'Only Jared knows at this point.”.

While the picture appeared to only show three birds, the question appears to rely on people thinking outside of the box and ignoring the cartoon, instead thinking of multiples of four.

And it was eventually a mum with a child in Year 2 that “dropped some knowledge”.

“We know Jared has to find worms in multiples of four so since 20 is the only answer in a multiple of four we can also deduce that Jared found five baby birds,"; the user wrote. “My second grader is smart.”

Other users applauded each other for eventually figuring out the right answer but some were still left thinking it was a trick question.

“Am I the only one that thought it was a trick question since they don't specify for how many days?” one user said.

This article was originally published on and has been republished here with permission.

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