Are you smarter than a Primary 5 student?

How about it? Do you think you are smarter than a Primary 5 student in Singapore?
That should be a no-brainer right? What kind of question is that? Of course you are smarter than a Primary 5 (11 year old) student!

Well, the following question that was given out to a P5 student had many adults scratching their heads. Give the question a look-see and check if your head is starting to itch.

It just so happens that my daughter is a P5 student this year so I showed her the question. After reading the question, she broke out in a smile and asked me what kind of question was that.

I have to say that when I first read the question, that was my response too. Maybe we're just not that bright. I have to add that I was instantly reminded of the questions Dame Slap used to asked her pixies and fairies - in Enid Blyton's "The Folk of the Faraway Tree" - that is to say, nonsensical questions.

However, there are much smarter people in Singapore who are ready to assure us  that it is a perfectly legitimate question posed by the teacher. (I beg to differ!)

Solution (Spoiler alert!)
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1) Albert knows that Bernard does not know the date, which means Albert was not told that it was in May or June because those two months have an unique identifier (19 and 18)

2) We are then left with July and August as the months to choose from. Bernard is now confident of his answer hence the date that he had been given must be a 'unique' date - thus eliminating dates with 14 in them.

3)  We are then left with July 16, August 15 and August 17 to choose from. This then means that the answer is July 16 because July is unique amongst the choices.

The answer therefore is July 16.

I think it would have been easier to tell Cheryl that if she was gonna be like that, that I didn't want to know when her birthday was.