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Home / Lifestyle

Are you smarter than a six-year-old? Take this test

Daily Mail
12 Jun, 2016 01:20 AM2 mins to read

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This article originally appeared on June 18, 2015.

A logic puzzle has baffled the internet, but its solution is apparently so simple that a child can solve it in seconds.

The now-viral puzzle comes from a Hong Kong elementary school admission test for six-year-olds, who are required to solve it within 20 seconds.

The test, as reported by Centauro, features a drawing of a parking lot with a car positioned in one of the six numbered spots, blocking the number from view.

Based on the visible numbers, the students are asked to determine the number of the spot where the car is parked.

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If you can't solve it right away, you're not alone: apparently, many adults have been stumped by the first-grade entrance exam question.

At first glance it might seem like logic or algebra is needed to find the right answer.

But, as it turns out, the solution is much easier than it first appears. It is explained below. The trick is to flip over the page - or the computer screen - with the drawing, making it apparent that the parking spots are numbered in a sequence, from 86 to 91.

The car is therefore in the second-left space, which is parking spot number 87.

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Adults tend to overthink the question, erroneously believing that the solution is rooted in complex mathematics, but children, who have a tendency to look at things from various angles, quickly grasp the simplicity of the puzzle and nail the answer right away.

British puzzle inventor David Bodycombe told The Guardian this week that the parking lot logic problem is his brainchild, inspired by a car park he had seen in Portugal 20 years ago.

It follows a number of other seemingly difficult maths questions that have gone viral lately, including an Edexcel GCSE Maths question in the UK that had some students complaining on Twitter.

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