Dad asks twitter for help after becoming stumped on year 1 maths question 20220114 p5qdme.html – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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This was published 4 years ago

Dad stumped by Year One maths question: 'Am I missing something?'

Merryn Porter
Merryn Porter

Parents around the world often struggle to make sense of homework, and remote learning during the pandemic certainly left plenty of parents scratching their heads.

So spare a thought for this dad who took to Twitter this week for help after he became stumped by his child's Mathematics problem.

US dad Casey Neistat asked his followers: "What am I missing here? This is for my daughter's first-grade test" with an image of four squares, three of which contained circles and a direction to "finish the dot pattern".

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This year 1 Mathematics question stumped Twitter this week. Twitter

He continued in the comments: "If it's a bouncing ball then why is there two circles in the third box? There is not enough data to absolutely determine that it represents a 'bounce'. Cannot be Fibonacci because that does not account for the circles being in different locations within the boxes".

Then adds: "This is a math question. There needs to be a mathematically absolute answer. So far me and all the replies are coming up with answers that could be applied but not absolute".

He ended with a request to his followers to "Show me your work. I wanna know how you arrived at your answer" and added "I'm so f---ing angry right now".

His post quickly went viral, amassing hundreds of comments.

Many thought the answer was to do with the "Fibonacci sequence", a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two that precede it, which would mean the correct answer was three circles.

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Others thought it was a simple pattern, but could not agree on an answer.

Many of his followers admitted they too were stumped, with one saying: "I'm confused. Am I not as smart as a first-grader?"

While another said simply: "The education system has failed us".

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