Singapore's Math Olympiad problem confuses everyone

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A logical reasoning question for 14-year-olds in the Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad has gone viral after a TV presenter posted it on Facebook, leaving many people across the globe stumped.

The mind-boggling question states that two boys, Albert and Bernard, became friends with a girl called Cheryl and wanted to know her birthday.

Cheryl gave them ten possible dates, including May 15, May 16, May 19, June 17, June 18, July 14, July 16, August 14, August 15 and August 17. Then, she told Albert and Bernard the month and day of her birthday respectively.

The question continues and states that Albert is not sure about her birthday yet but certain that Bernard, who was told the day, does not know either. From this, it is possible to eliminate the two unique dates, May 19 and June 18.

If Cheryl had told Albert her birthday was in May or June then these two dates would still be valid. But Albert knows that Bernard does not know her birthday so this means she must have told Albert that the month is either July or August.

Bernard then says he has deducted the answer from the five remaining dates. It is impossible that the day of Cheryl’s birthday is 14 because if this was the case, there would be two possible dates, July 14 and August 14, and Bernard would not be able to ascertain the answer. So, only three possible dates, July 16, August 15 and August 16 are left.

Albert also obtains the answer after these clues. Since he only knows the month of Cheryl’s birthday, the answer must be July 16. If Cheryl told Albert she was born in August, Albert could not have deducted the answer because there would still be two possible dates.

Henry Ong, executive director of the Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad, said the birthday question is a difficult one that aims to sift out the most intelligent students.
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Here's a math problem: Mark bought 10 games at Walmart. How many grapes can fit into the sun?

Jomagic

I need to know why Cheryl doesn't know her own birthday

shavona-lakeshag

I didn't understand the question nor the explenation.

finalcreature

They expect 14 year old to solve this? This aint even math, its pure logic

Warlord

I hate Word Math Problems.

I'm going to do what I do when I see them, take a random guess, if it was a multiple choice answer test.

adrianalvarez

I'm a singaporean and it is tough but it can be solved

johnlexa

I guess professor layton created the exam.

TheHornet

Just freaking TELL YOUR BIRTHDAY CHERYL!!🤦‍♀️

cocopuffchloe

This is why people end up hating math like myself. People make the stupidest things with math when in the real world is clearly unnecessary. Bored math teachers think this is cute and is really not. These kids are super smart and you are gonna make them hate math.

mauriciom

this question is straight up from chunnin exams

quinnad

The fact that it happened to be in my 2014 - 2018 Olympiad Revision Book for this year...

golden_boar

If I was in called up to answer it, here is my is what I would say "basically Both of the boys don't know neither does Cheryl knows her own birthday"

GreasyBadger

Shit, no wonder Singapore is the 4th richest state in the world per capita, even richer than America.

Smoke

I'm Chinese and the only way I'm keeping up with my friends that do Olympiad is take p-ac in Australia and get my friends to send me questions from their class in China.i swear to god the math in Australia is so easy

智障-ks