Millions of people all over the internet were in an uproar after a child answered “5+5+5=15” on a math test and got the question marked incorrect.
The test question simply required repetitive addition (multiplication) to be used to figure out what “5×3” is.
This math question is a typical question set according to the “common teaching standards” for children in the third grade in the subject of mathematics.
However, according to this “guide”, you are supposed to understand 5×3 as “five groups of three” and not “three groups of five”.
When the boy handed in the test, the teacher also crossed out another question again, indicating that it was incorrect because he had drawn six rows of fours, instead of four rows of sixes.
The image was originally published on Imgur and reddit, where soon everyone began to share it with a great level of outrage at the determination of that teacher to have to follow everything “to the letter”.
Many comments surfaced, one of the most popular being a user who said “So now you just take a kid who was doing well in math, you confuse him, and you bring him down by trying to correct things that don’t have the greatest importance”.
What do you think about this situation? Do you think the teacher did the right thing by crossing out the boy’s question? In the end, the result is correct, however, the child did not apply the procedure that he was supposed to follow.
