Today’s homework problem has baffled adults the world over. According to Insider, the question originated in Hong Kong, as part of a first grade admissions test. Look at the image above. What is the number of the spot where the car is parked? In the original test, students were given 20 seconds to solve it.

Bonus question

While you work on the parking spot problem, here’s a bonus question. What goes in the empty box? Hint: it’s not six.

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The solution

OK, what’s your answer? The key to solving this question is to look at it differently — specifically, look at it upside down.

The car is parked in spot #87. Congrats to everyone who got that right. If you didn’t and you want to redeem yourself, try this: the first five numbers in a sequence are 8, 5, 4, 9 and 1. What are the next five?

More math

This one looks straightforward enough, but it too stumped the internet.

•September 4, 2020