SINGAPORE - A purported bonus question from a Primary 1 examination paper has left netizens stumped after it appeared on local forums on Monday (May 15).

A photo of the bonus question, which is worth four marks, first surfaced on the HardwareZone forum site and later spread on social media.

The circular puzzle, which has five numbers, calls for the taker to study the number pattern and fill in the missing numbers. No further information was given on how to solve it.

The question said marks will be awarded for correct answers, while no marks will be deducted for wrong ones.

Netizens were split over the correct way to solve it, with many suggesting that there was no fixed answer.

A check by The Straits Times found that a near-identical puzzle had appeared previously on the blog of Gordon Burgin, who claims to be an author of maths puzzles and logic problems.

However, the bottom-left number in Mr Burgin's puzzle is 20 instead of 2.



PHOTO: GORDONBURGIN.COM



Called the Petite Circle, Mr Burgin's puzzle provided more information on how to solve it, and contains a detailed solution.

The puzzle is reminiscent of a maths question, dubbed "Cheryl's birthday", that went viral across the globe and left netizens scratching their heads in April 2015.

It was initially mistook for a Primary 5 question but turned out to be a Secondary 3 Maths Olympiad question.