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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Lifestyle
Justin Kelly & Amber O'Connor

Maths problem parents and kids can't answer labelled 'impossible' as it baffles the internet

While there is a lot to miss about our school years, it's unlikely that exams, particularly maths exams, will anyone's list of fond memories.

While some questions are easier than others and children may sometimes rely on parents for help, experts at Save My Exams in the UK found a GCSE-level maths question so tough even parents couldn't get it right.

In Ireland, the question is the equivalent of those posed to Junior Cert students at the age of 15 or 16.

READ MORE: Irish soldier in Lebanon runs Christmas Day marathon for fallen comrade Sean Rooney

As reported by the Mirror, the maths question shows a shape with all its measurements in centimetres, where the area of the shape is A cm².

Respondents are asked to show that A = 2x² + 24x + 46.

Shockingly, not a single parent was able to correctly answer this question - which would suggest that the struggle with this maths problem was justified for their children. Of the 1,000 parents quizzed, 92 percent were unable to answer the question and eight percent failed to get the correct answer.

Save My Exams' maths lead Lucy Kirkham has worked out the answer and shared advice for anyone left stuck by the question.

She said: "Seeing questions with loads of Algebra can be scary but breaking them down into smaller chunks will help you work through them more easily.

"Our maths experts at Save My Exams create colour-coded model answers which break down each question into easier steps to carefully guide users to the correct answer.

"This question gives you the answer you're working towards, which can sometimes be off-putting as you wonder 'How am I ever going to get there?'. Don’t let it worry you, just try to start with the first step and you'll surprise yourself with how far you can get!

"Even if you don’t get all the way through, marks are awarded for different stages of your working so you can always try to pick up some marks and use our model answers to see how you’d pick up the rest."

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