Back To Square One … Or Primary One

After many attempts at The Question, I finally managed to get the answer. Should I laugh or cry?

I did neither. Instead I went to the nearest bookshop and bought this.

Yes, it is for 7 – 8 years old. And yes, I am quite embarrassed about it. But what is even more embarrassing is that I still can’t solve some of these questions correctly!

Questions such as this still get my goat.

Annoyingly easy but still requires a bit of thinking.

A quarter of a century ago, when Hubby and I were kids in primary school, we did not have to be too bothered by these sort of questions. They seldom make an appearance in our test/exam papers. If they did, we weren’t too bothered by the cost of a few marks lost as most in the cohort were probably in the same state. Questions from Math Olympiad? What is Math Olympiad? I  have never heard of that term back then.

Now, it is a totally different story. Some of the questions I have seen in this book had actually appeared in various incarnations in our princess’s test/exam papers. I am not sure what is the exact intention of putting these so-called “non-routine” questions in test/exam papers suppose to fulfil, but their presence certainly do make the papers very challenging for the uninitiated.

I wonder how long will it take me to finish this book. A month? Half a year? Ever?

 

P.S: 10 seconds. If you are wondering what is the answer to the above question.