'Unsolvable' exam question leaves Chinese students flummoxed

An seemingly unsolvable examination question on a chinese language maths paper has left both students and social media stumped.

Number one college students at a college in the chinese language district of shunqing were faced with this question on a paper: "if a deliver had 26 sheep and 10 goats onboard, how antique is the ship's captain?"

The question seemed on a recent fifth-grade level paper, supposed for kids around eleven years old.

Images of the query, at the side of students' valiant tries at solutions, surfaced this week on chinese language social media - wherein it triggered debate and speedy went viral.

Education officers later stated the query turned into not a mistake, but intended to focus on "essential awareness"."the captain is at the least 18 because he must be an grownup to pressure the deliver," one scholar answered.

"the captain is 36, due to the fact 26+10 is 36 and the captain wanted them to feature as much as his age," some other guessed.

One scholar however, actually gave up.

"the captain's age is... I do not know. I cannot resolve this."

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On line, however, humans were not pretty as beneficiant.

"this question makes no logical experience at all. Does the trainer even realize the answer?" said one commenter on weibo, a chinese microblogging platform.

"if a school had 26 teachers, 10 of which were not wondering, how vintage is the important?" another requested.

Some however, defended the college - which has now not been named - pronouncing the query promoted critical questioning.

"the complete factor of it's far to make the scholars suppose. It is accomplished that," one man or woman commented.

"this question forces children to explain their thinking and offers them area to be innovative. We have to have extra questions like this," another said.

'think out of doors the field'
The shunqing schooling branch posted a statement at the 26 january announcing the take a look at had intended to "examine... Vital focus and an capability to suppose independently".

"a few surveys show that number one faculty students in our country lack a experience of important cognizance in regard to arithmetic," it said.

The traditional chinese language method of training heavily emphasises on observe-taking and repetition, referred to as rote mastering, which critics say hinders innovative wondering.

But the department said questions just like the boat one "enable college students to venture barriers and suppose out of the container".

And of direction, there is continually that one character that has all of the answers.

"the overall weight of 26 sheep and 10 goat is 7,700kg, based totally on the common weight of each animal," stated one weibo commenter.

"in china, if you're using a deliver that has more than five,000kg of shipment you need to have possessed a ship license for 5 years. The minimum age for buying a boat's license is 23, so he is at least 28."